Far More Than Rubies
by frodogenic
Summary: Nine years after AOTC, tragedy revisits the Lars Homestead. Little Luke Skywalker is suddenly plunged into chaos as the rebel movements discover a secret military project that may make a crucial difference in the war with the Empire. COMPLETE.
1. An Old Tragedy Renewed

Author's Note: Hello! To those of you who may have been following _The Father_, fear not: this does not mean I'm dropping that story. However, I'm struggling to find inspiration on that one right now, and I was viciously bitten by other plot bunnies...So, the theory is that maybe if I pay the new plot bunnies a little attention and distract myself, I'll be able to get back to the first story with refreshed creativity. _The Father_ will still take precedence, and I make no promises regarding this story. If I finish it, it will definitely be a whole lot shorter than _The Father_.

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"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies."_ Proverbs 31:10 _

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_Six years after the events of Mustafar…_

The desert was quieter than usual tonight. The man was not. Rather than waiting out the darkness indoors, as had been his habit for six years now, he paced on the rocky bluffs outside, scanning the night landscape with his eyes.

When he'd first arrived in this place, every night had seemed impossibly quiet out in the desert. It was not the first time the man had found himself subsisting in wilderness, but this wilderness lacked the typical noises of indigenous life—probably because there was not much indigenous life to speak of. The wind was usually the only source of sound. Tonight, there wasn't even much of that. Of course, there weren't any clouds overhead—clouds hardly ever appeared over this most barren of deserts, and it was quite the occasion when a few drops of rain happened to waft down from the sky. The vast array of stars, armed with a thousand memories, shone sharply overhead, and the man did not leave his eyes on them or on the scattered moons for long. Yet if memory was powerful tonight, there was no motion or sound or any disturbance; the night was by all measures a supremely peaceful one.

And yet the man could not shake the dire sense of dread that haunted him. It was not the first time he'd been thus disturbed; indeed, these sensations were anything but infrequent, even since coming to this desolate place. But that was far from reassuring, for never did this uneasiness ever lack justification. Sometime later, he would inevitably learn what black event had aroused them. Sometimes the unease was fairly light, passed quickly, and he would find the corpse of some unfortunate local animal in the morning light. But other times—times like this—the unease was intense, powerful, compelling. And those times, the news was not mild. Those times he would hear of an attack on the nearby town, or a slaughtered homestead, or of a small local ship crashed in the canyons nearby.

Tonight was the strongest the sensations had been for six years. Too strong for the man to do nothing. Impatient, not knowing what he _could _do yet driven by his instinct to take action, the man resorted to treading a groove through the rock in front of his house. Again, he reached with his mind into the night, stretching his thoughts abroad and projecting before his mind's eye the image of a slight blond boy, who was supposed to be deep asleep but who was tinkering with the pieces of a model ship by glowlight.

Usually such images made the man smile and shake his head, perhaps whisper a soft reprimand across space and time in the secure knowledge that he would not be heard by the preoccupied little boy. Tonight they offered only temporary reassurance, which lasted a few minutes at most before his fears again arose and prompted another check. He had been checking for hours now. There had been no hints of unhappiness, no matching sensations of inexplicable dread from the little boy.

The man had finally decided to take himself indoors and cease his pointless worrying when a blazingly sudden spike of terror struck his mind, terror definitely not his own. Horrified, the man stretched out yet again—the boy was slipping out his door, his breathing coming fast and his young eyes wide, moving hesitantly up a staircase. What had prompted this sudden fright the man could not say, but suddenly a new person appeared upon his thoughts, a woman garbed in the local homespun with fear glittering in her eyes, and she took the hand of the little boy.

The man gasped, and dashed inside his house, ripping open a trunk that stood against the wall and digging through it frantically. Feverishly his fingers found what they sought, he seized it, fled the house, ran to the garage and bounded into the speeder. His dread and disbelief surged as the engine sputtered, and then screeched, spitting out sparks and tongues of flame and smoke. Sickness flooded into the pit of his stomach—of all times! There was no time for repairs—the man ran from the smoking maw of the garage and out across the open desert, robes flapping wildly behind him, heedless of what further dangers might lurk in the wild.

The run was a long one, a grueling one, but the man gave no thought to it. He raced across the uneven rocks and up and down the treacherous dunes and never broke his pace the entire way, never even paused for breath, refused to pay any attention to the burning of his muscles. Time blurred, stretched interminably, as interminable as the desert dunes…

And then he saw the flames lighting the night sky ahead, and the confirmation of his dreading spurred him forward yet more swiftly. The first fight had long ended when he swept in against the robed, howling Tusken Raiders and their moaning banthas; the second, despite the weariness of his body, was even briefer. In a few short minutes, so many less than it had taken him to arrive, he stood alone, staring around him at the corpses of Sandpeople and banthas alike, all beneath the fatal, cackling glare of the burning fires.

With a numb thought the man extinguished the blaze, and descended into the stricken remains of the homestead. A man's body sprawled against the side of the stairs, speared through by a gaderffii, his face contorted and eyes bulging. With a shaking hand, the man knelt and closed his eyes, sickened by the slow, painful death the other had clearly endured.

He continued downward, stepping through the wreckage of what had once been a tidy, well-kept home. It took some searching, but he found the woman in the kitchen, beyond the debris of the shattered door and makeshift barricade she'd hoped in for protection. Her eyes too the man closed gently.

Yet…there was no sign of the small boy. No tiny body lay crumpled near the woman, or anywhere else in the house, or outside on the plains near the vaporators. Dimly the man wondered if perhaps the child had been taken captive. If so—if so there was still a slim sliver of tortuous hope that he could reach the little one in time…Carefully the man reached out with his mind for the first time since running from his house.

A frightened young mind instantly met his, surrounded by blackness and tears---but the man breathed an immediate sigh, for he was receiving no sensations of pain. The young one at least seemed to be unharmed. Neither did the bond between them suffer any fluctuation, any increase of vagueness—no, the images and emotions coming to him were actually stronger than was normal, clearer. The boy wasn't on the move, hadn't been captured—they must have hidden him!

The man spun around in the wreckage of the kitchen, searching as much with his mind as he dared, and shouting the little one's name. Very quickly his ears discerned a soft but furious pounding, coming from beneath the woman's body. The man dashed down and rolled the corpse aside, set his hands on the floor beneath. He could feel the pounding in his fingertips, could faintly hear a small voice crying back to him, but there was only the tiled floor, he couldn't find the outline of a trapdoor, couldn't see any kind of control—

A large square section of tile gave a futile surge upward, suddenly. There _was_ a trapdoor, and the boy was trying to push it up, but his weight had been on it, and the woman's before that. The man stepped back and waited a moment until the section of flooring lurched upward again. Quickly he snatched the edge of the panel with his fingers and flipped the hidden trapdoor backward, and only just let go of it in time to catch the boy as he fled out of the cellar and flung himself onto his rescuer.

They stayed sitting in the burnt-out carnage of the kitchen, the man holding the boy closely and trying to soothe his trembling and sobs. He tucked his brown robe around the child to keep him from seeing the young woman's body; but the boy didn't need to see to know what had happened while he had been hidden away in the cellar.

_Several hours later…_

Smoke was again rising over the small homestead, in unison with the first sun; this time the smoke of a funeral pyre, roughly put together from the wreckage of the homestead. The man stood quietly some distance away, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of the small boy, who was huddled silently underneath a blanket. The child's tears had been spent for the time being. As for the man, his thoughts had flown back across the years and the lightyears to another funeral pyre, another blonde, blue-eyed boy…and another young dark-haired woman.

Especially to that other dark-haired woman.

Presently the man tightened his grip and looked down at the tear-streaked face of his young friend. "Let's go, little one," he said gently. The boy's sorrowful blue eyes flitted up, then back to the funeral pyre. Hesitantly, with many a long glance backward, he followed the man away from the destroyed homestead, on the long trek back across the desert.


	2. Reunion

_Many lightyears away…_

It was with great reluctance that the aide approached the sealed door. The general had been very stern—sterner than usual, that was to say—about not wanting to be interrupted. And the aide knew perfectly well why. When the leaders of the fledgling rebel movements took the risk of gathering and trying to hash out some kind of mutual alliance, they wanted to get that hashing over with as quickly as possible, and the more interruptions they had to deal with, the longer they would risk drawing Imperial attention.

But the aide was fairly sure that this message qualified as important. It was directed for one of the chief rebel leaders, and had already been judged significant enough to be forwarded from its original destination by that leader's rebel cell. If it was urgent enough to take that kind of risk, the lady would certainly want to know about it. So, summoning up his courage, the aide pressed stalwartly on the buzzer key, and stepped quickly in when the door opened.

"My lady," he said before the general could start scolding, "there's been a message forwarded to you from home."

On the far side of the conference table, a slender brunette stood smoothly, a hint of concern noticeable in her eyes. "Excuse me for a moment, Bail," she said to the man at the head of the conference table. She seemed to flow around table to the aide's side, her soft gray robes whispering against the floor.

The aide, between his delight at avoiding a reprimand from the general and his overwhelming admiration for the lady following him, could hardly keep his head straight as he guided her to the communications suite. "You'll just need to give your code, my lady," he said; then, respectful and reluctant, he withdrew and left her to view whatever message had been sent.

…

The woman smiled brightly at the aide as he departed, but her smile evaporated as quickly as the door whisked shut. She sat grimly in the chair, and for a moment remained there silently. Then with a deep breath, she opened her eyes and firmly keyed her code into the com unit. The projector lit, and just as quickly she choked out a command for it to pause. Her heart clenched in a sudden, impossible agony. She had not expected good news—but this…

_No…oh, please no…_

It was several painful minutes before she could dredge up courage to continue watching. But at last, she managed to discover some core of strength in her spirit—a strength drawn on far too many times already, but perhaps there was still enough for this…

The man, the only too familiar man displayed in tri-dimension in front her gave a reserved nod and a small smile. "Allow me to allay your fears," he said, sounding a little older than she remembered. "He's just fine."

The woman had to pause the recording again and take in a wavering breath, blink back tears, stop the fluttering of her nerves. It took her some time to release her previous dread and accept the newfound relief, so powerful were both emotions. When she was again composed, she resumed the message.

The smile that had been frozen on the man's face quickly made a stage exit. "I'm afraid that this is no longer a suitable arrangement," he continued. "There was an attack from the natives. I'm sorry…" The man swallowed, blinked, looked away for a moment. "I was not fast enough to save your in-laws."

The woman's hand rose to cover her mouth, tears flooding into her eyes.

"They managed to successfully hide him, and he was unharmed," the man moved onward, clearly fighting back emotion himself. "He's here with me now. I've done my best but he's still quite shaken. I think it would be advisable for you to come as quickly as is safely possible. We'll be waiting." The man scrounged up one last smile for her. "I look forward to seeing you again, and I'm sure he does as well."

The projector shut down with a whir. The woman leaned back weakly in the seat, still trying to absorb a bewildering concoction of relief, sorrow, adrenaline, and elation. It was a few moments before she felt recovered enough to get up and return to the conference room. Ignoring the glances of the other gathered leaders, she moved swiftly to the powerfully built, dark-complexioned man at the head of the table and motioned him aside.

"Bail, it was from Tatooine," she murmured softly in his ear. He started.

"Is everything—"

"It'll be fine, but I need to leave," she said. "I'm sorry. You'll have to carry on without me for a few days."

"Don't apologize," he returned forcefully. "You, of all people, have nothing to apologize for. I'll stand in for you myself. Is there anything you need?"

"No, the ship is stocked. Thank you, Bail."

He took her hand earnestly and looked her square in the eye. "Thank _you_," he said, nodding. She shook his hand as firmly as she could, nodded to the rest of the table, and all but ran to the hangar, where a tidy gray yacht awaited her. In a few minutes, with an ease she had not possessed six years ago, she had guided the small ship smoothly into hyperspace.

It was a long flight to the Tatooine system—achingly, tortuously long. It seemed almost infinite, in fact. So long resigned to the truth that she must never go to that system again, it seemed impossible that it could now be happening.

Her emotions twisted her mercilessly for the entire voyage; she could not make out _what_ she felt about returning to Tatooine, or even whether she believed that she was actually doing it. She switched on the droids for a short time, hoping some conversation would calm her. It did not, and she deactivated them once more. By the last minutes of the journey she was sitting nervously in the cockpit, twisting in her fingers the simple silver chain of the necklace she had not taken off once for nine years now, and watching the chrono obsessively as it counted off the remaining seconds…

The alarm sang at last, and with a trembling hand the woman brought the yacht out of hyperspace. Ahead of her swelled Tatooine. She was strangely shocked that after all that happened since her last visit, the planet did not look even marginally different. It _should_ have been different. All that bright goldenness should have turned to black, black sand. That this world of all worlds should be the one to escape the shadows…

The woman shook herself from her thoughts and turned briskly to the nav computer, still finding it difficult to believe that she was, in fact, here at Tatooine. She knew the coordinates, very well; she entered the desired destination without a whisper of hesitation. Switching the ship to autopilot, she watched with growing anxiety and excitement as the planet grew larger in her viewport, filling it at last…and then, ever so slowly, coming down through the atmosphere, until finally she could see the broad sands and rocky plateaus whipping by below. The braking system began to whine, the engines to slow as her ship raced across the surface into the advancing line of the sunset. At long last, the engines cycled out completely, yielding to the repulsors, and the ship settled itself down on the surface of Tatooine. Outside the second sun was setting, and dusk was already deepening.

The woman drew a deep bracing breath as she left the cockpit, but her fingers still quavered as she donned a cloak and headed towards the landing ramp. She felt giddy with excitement, so giddy that she surprised herself by walking with measured and steady step down onto the surface. Once her feet touched the ground, though, the parched land seemed to soak up some of her nervous energy, and she felt calmer. She stepped further away from the ship, and turned, searching the horizon.

There—a few hundred meters away, she could just glimpse a rough building, made of the pourstone that was Tatooine's favorite construction material. A light glimmered through the growing darkness. The woman turned back just long enough to seal up the ship before moving quickly towards the building. She wasn't halfway there when the door opened and a hooded figure set out towards her at an even faster pace.

A few feet away the figure lowered its hood, and the woman laughed and ran to hug him; it was unlike her to be so effusive, but she was so light-headed with excitement and it had been so long that she couldn't help it. "Obi-Wan!"

He nodded and smiled at her. "I take it you _did_ receive my message," he said. "I was beginning to wonder. You look very well." He fell in beside her as they continued towards the house.

Her racing heart froze mid-beat as a small figure appeared in the light of the doorway ahead. "Ben?" a high young voice called, very nervously. "Ben, who's that?"

Obi-Wan gave her an encouraging smile and took her hand to help her forward. "It's all right, Luke," he called ahead. "We have a guest. Wait inside."

She could breathe more easily when the diminutive shadowed form disappeared back inside the door—but her body was suddenly charged with anticipation, and her hesitancy dissipated. Her pace quickened, until she was almost pulling Obi-Wan along behind her like a child. But the Jedi moved more briskly and drew just enough ahead of her to open the door. "Welcome to our humble abode," he said gallantly, gesturing her inside. With a last deep breath, the woman entered.

There he was.

A small blonde boy, only just six years old, was huddled on the room's one chair, arms wrapped around his knees. His bright blue eyes followed her entrance with the haunted suspicion of one whose memories of pain were all too fresh. The hurt she saw there resonated with harsh force in her own soul. She could not move, could not take her eyes off the little boy.

Her motionless staring did not do much to assuage the child's concern. "Ben, who's she?" he demanded. He appeared to trust Obi-Wan, but there was still a slight flicker of fear in his voice.

Obi-Wan closed the door behind them and dropped down on one knee beside the boy's chair. "She is a very dear friend of mine," he began.

"I don't know her."

"Actually, you do know her," Obi-Wan continued. "But you have not seen her since you were a very small baby."

The little boy's face wrinkled up comically into a confused frown.

"Do you remember the letters that I would bring to your house every year on your birthday?" Obi-Wan pressed. "The ones from your mother?"

The little boy's eyes widened suddenly, and switched sharply up to the woman. "My mother?" he asked Obi-Wan softly.

Obi-Wan brushed his hand across the boy's hair. "Yes, your mother," he repeated. Then he nodded to the woman, and she felt her heart clench as she took off her hood, then her cloak altogether.

"Hello, Luke," Padmé Amidala Skywalker whispered.


	3. Stories Retold

Author's Note: Thanks once more to all who have reviewed me thus far! I appreciate you all very much, and also all of the other readers. Here's some more story for your consideration…Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think about this bit.

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Luke stared back at her, not budging from his defensive huddle, looking as though he didn't believe his mother could possibly be here. That was understandable. She couldn't believe it herself. The silence dragged on between them.

"You're my mother?" Luke at last asked dubiously.

She nodded, forcing herself not to swallow or lick her lips nervously. "Yes, I am," she said. Then, so softly she wasn't sure he heard her, "I missed you so much."

If he'd heard, he gave no sign of it. "She's very pretty," he stage-whispered to Obi-Wan. The Jedi chuckled.

"Yes, your mother is quite lovely," he agreed. "Would you mind if she gave you a hug?" He winked at Luke, as if to say that manly men such as themselves understood how important it was to humor female emotions. Padmé wanted so badly to add her own plea, but she could easily see that Luke was already very unsettled. Obi-Wan would understand better than she how best to handle her son right now.

Luke looked nervously at her, then nodded reluctantly at Obi-Wan. "But not too much," he muttered.

"Of course not," Obi-Wan agreed. "Padmé?"

She made herself approach calmly and smile at Luke. Kneeling, she hugged her little boy far more lightly than she wanted to, with just one arm—but her restraint would only go so far, and she didn't have enough left to keep back tears of joy.

"How come you're crying?"

Padmé laughed just a little past the tears. "It's because I'm so happy to see you again," she told him softly. "You've grown up so much!"

Luke shifted uncomfortably. Padmé let go, not wanting to push him too far. Her little boy had been through a great deal recently; between that and her unexplained absence from his life, it would almost certainly be a long time before she earned his trust. _And you deserve it_, she lectured herself mercilessly. _What kind of mother sends her newborn children away? _

Obi-Wan frowned at her, and she knew the Jedi had somehow heard those vehement thoughts. "Luke, why don't you go get your snack now?" he suggested. "I'll tell you and your mother that story when you come back."

Luke's eyes lit up a little. She didn't know whether it was because he had the chance to get out of the room or because he was looking forward to the story. Maybe it was both. Either way, he wasted no time bounding out of his chair and scampering off, presumably in the direction of the kitchen unit.

"Padmé," Obi-Wan said as soon as Luke was gone, "you cannot blame yourself. We did what was best for Luke. You know that. You were in no condition to care for a child, and the Emperor was searching for you. Such a risk could not be taken."

Padmé sat numbly in the chair Luke had vacated. "I can't help thinking there had to be something I could have done," she whispered. "If I'd kept him—Owen and Beru—Obi-Wan, I might as well have killed them myself!"

"The Tuskens would have attacked whether Luke was there or not," Obi-Wan answered softly. "I am the one who failed to protect them, Padmé, not you."

She turned at the note of anguish. "What happened?" she asked him softly.

Obi-Wan drew a deep breath. "I sensed that something was amiss," he began slowly, "but I did not know that Luke was in danger. I continued to check on him from here, but I sensed no definite danger to the Lars until the Tuskens had begun their attack. As soon as I understood, I ran for my speeder." The Jedi stopped, laughed bitterly. "It sounds like a bad holodrama. The engine failed me, quite spectacularly. I ran as fast as possible on foot, but I was far too late. Beru had hidden Luke in a cellar. I arrived in time to prevent the Tuskens from finding him."

Padmé felt a sudden flux of fear. "Obi-Wan—you didn't use your lightsaber—"

"Don't worry," he told her distantly. "We cremated all the bodies, even the banthas. There's no evidence."

She breathed a sigh of relief, and reflected that she'd experienced far too many sighs of relief in the last few days for her health. "Is he all right?" she asked softly.

Obi-Wan sighed himself. "He's as well as can be expected after such a traumatic incident," the Jedi said. "He's been struggling with nightmares and dreads going to sleep. We've been staying up overly late and waking very early, but I don't feel that now is the moment to begin enforcing appropriate bedtimes."

Padmé nodded pained agreement. The subject of nightmares was enough to give _her_ nightmares. But at least Luke was dreaming of what had already happened, rather than terrible glimpses of the possible future…

"What do we do now?" she asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure, Padmé," he said. "But that conversation should wait, I think."

Padmé frowned, but understood as soon as she heard the patter of returning footsteps. Her heart caught all over again as Luke came shyly back into view, a familiar-looking box of something in one hand and a spaceship model in the other. He looked a bit unhappily at the chair Padmé had claimed in his absence. She started to move, but Obi-Wan motioned her back down.

"You can come sit with me, Luke," he said.

Luke relaxed as soon as he had snuggled himself between Obi-Wan and the chair, and was nibbling on his snack. Obi-Wan took a handful of the crunchy stuff out of the box himself.

"Care for some Bantha Bites, Padmé?" he asked her.

Padmé took a few from Obi-Wan numbly. That was why the box seemed familiar. Anakin had loved these. Apparently his son did too, from the rate he was gobbling them up. Just like Anakin had once done…and would never do again.

"You said something about a story, I believe?" she said quickly. Anything that might distract her from these painful memories.

Luke looked up at Obi-Wan expectantly.

"Indeed I did," Obi-Wan nodded. "I was just about to tell young Luke a story before you arrived."

Luke's eyes shifted uneasily onto her.

"In fact," Obi-Wan continued, "it's one about you, Padmé."

"Is that your name?" Luke asked her.

"Yes," she told him. "Padmé Skywalker."

Luke watched her, seeming a little less hostile. "I'm Luke."

She gave him a bright smile. "Yes. Luke Anakin Skywalker."

Luke nodded slowly. She could see a little of his suspicion easing away.

"Shall I begin?" Obi-Wan interjected. Luke nodded again, turning his attention from Padmé to his model ship and zooming the toy around some in the air.

The story was from Geonosis. It hurt her to think of Geonosis most of the time—but somehow, when Obi-Wan recounted the old memories aloud, they became less painful. For one thing, Obi-Wan was a surprisingly good storyteller. She was truly amazed by how effortlessly he could spin the tale and fascinate a boy of six. It wasn't the sort of thing one expected from a Jedi Master…

For another thing, Luke was listening along with her. The story held no pain for him; only adventure. She had not expected her six-year-old son to be such an attentive listener; his bright eyes were fixed eagerly on Obi-Wan as the story wound from Obi-Wan's capture to Padmé and Anakin's botched rescue attempt, and on to the meeting with the Separatist leaders.

"But your mother was very brave, and would not do what the Neimoidian leader said," Obi-Wan said. "The Neimoidian became furious. 'Take them to the arena!' he roared."

Padmé couldn't restrain a snicker at the Jedi's rather impressive imitation of a Neimoidian accent.

"So the insect soldiers dragged all of us into a big arena and chained us to pillars," Obi-Wan continued dramatically. "All of a sudden, the soldiers opened some gates, and let out three vicious monsters!"

Luke gasped appreciatively.

"There was an acklay, with six huge pincer feet," Obi-Wan elaborated, imitating the beast's stabbing strides with both arms. "There was a nexu with claws as long as your whole arm. And there was an enormous reek as big as three banthas!"

Padmé smiled at Luke's excited, "What did you do?"

"I looked up," Obi-Wan continued suspensefully, "and there was the acklay running straight at me! I dodged his pincers, but the monster became even angrier than before. I thought he was going to gobble me up like Bantha Bites!"

Luke stuffed another handful of cereal into his mouth with a grin. "But you got away from him!"

"Yes—your father jumped up on top of the reek and helped me up, and we rode away from the acklay as fast as we could make that reek go."

Luke glanced up at Padmé. "What did _she_ do?" he asked curiously.

"Well, your mother was very brave and smart," Obi-Wan said. "She snuck herself out of her handcuffs with a _teensy_ little wire and climbed all the way on top of that tall pillar. The nexu jumped up after her, roaring and snapping his great big teeth! But your mother was so brave that she just kicked that nexu all the way back to the ground. Then your father charged up on the reek and ran the nexu over, and you mother jumped on with us."

Luke stared at her with open admiration. "You really did that?" he asked.

She nodded with a smile. "Yes, I did."

"You should see the scar that nexu gave her," Obi-Wan added dramatically. "She had a great big slash across her back, and even _that_ didn't stop your mother."

Luke's attitude towards her was markedly less hostile for the rest of the story. Finally it came to an end, and Obi-Wan gently announced bedtime. Immediately Luke snuggled up against his Jedi caretaker, protesting softly, his eyes fearful. It sickened her to see her son's obvious fear of falling asleep.

"No," Obi-Wan said. "It's been a very busy day today. You need rest, Luke."

Luke buried his face into Obi-Wan's sleeve with an unhappy whimper. Padmé was more than ready to grant a postponement, so wrenched was she, but Obi-Wan stood and picked the boy up, handing him his model ship. There was a strange pause then; for a few seconds Obi-Wan simply stood there, gently patting Luke's head.

"Will you tell your mother good night?" Obi-Wan asked after several seconds of silence.

"Night," Luke murmured. He was blinking sleepily already, and wasn't protesting anymore.

"Good night, Luke," she told him. _Sweet dreams, sweetheart._


	4. End of Night

Author's Note: Sorry about the long waits, both on this and in particular on _The Father_…yes, yes, I know, I'm sorry. But between the disfavor of the Muses and that great cultural institute known as "midterms," I'm having some difficulty. Spring break is in sight, however! So bear with me if you will and hopefully there will more on _The Father_ soon for those of you who are following it. And as for this story…here's some more right now! Tell me what you think. Feel free to scold. :P

It was so quiet here at night.

The small house only had one bed, and because of Luke's frequent nightmares Obi-Wan was already sharing it with him, so Padmé had brushed aside the Jedi's efforts at chivalry and spread some blankets out on the floor of the main room. It was not the most comfortable of beds, but her mind and heart were too full for her to notice. Everything was silent except for her own breathing and the occasional rush of the wind against the walls outside. Despite—or maybe because of—the stillness, she could not sleep. Instead she lay motionless, stretched on her back, her eyes following the crossed beams of moonlight out the window. From here she could only see one of the three moons.

Her body might be still, but her mind flew, spun with reactions and emotions and memories. So much had happened so quickly; so much more would come with the rising of the suns. Silently she laid there, trying to process the maelstrom of impressions that had swarmed upon her in the last several hours.

Luke's nervous, uncertain young face was the strongest of the impressions by far. For so long she'd had nothing to cling to but her own imagined pictures of what her son might look like; now with wondering care she compared those old images to the child she had met today. Luke did indeed resemble his father to a painful degree, but not in the ways she had imagined he would; his small face seemed to be mostly his own, but capped with his father's blond hair, set with his father's startling blue eyes. She had imagined a vibrant, happy child; she had met one hurting and fearful. Perhaps a mere week or two earlier he _had_ been that vibrant, happy boy; or perhaps the similarity to Anakin was only skin deep, and Luke was a quiet child by nature.

The mystery of her son's personality gnawed at her, carved slashes of guilt through her thoughts. By now, she should have known Luke so well that these answers would be embedded permanently in her subconscious. Yet she knew nothing at all.

She tried to console the stabbing guilt with the promise of the future. She and Obi-Wan had been up for several hours more after making the crucial decision that Luke would return with her. According to the plans they had made, the three of them would remain on Tatooine for another day in hopes that Luke would get at least a little accustomed to having Padmé around; after that they would pack what few possessions Obi-Wan had at the house onto her yacht and quit the system. Both of them had agreed that it would be in Luke's best interests for Obi-Wan to remain with mother and son for a time, so that Luke could adjust to life with her at his own pace. After a few months at most, Obi-Wan would rejoin Master Yoda, and she and Luke would be on their own.

She'd missed the first six years, but tomorrow she could start making up for—

A miserable wail cut through the night and Padmé bolted upright with a startled gasp. A second gasping cry struck her ears as she struggled to extricate herself from the blanket. She saw a glimmer of light switch on in the other room as she scrambled up awkwardly, kicking away the blanket; the third sob sounded broken, muffled. She reached the door breathless.

Luke was huddled up with his face buried in Obi-Wan's shirt; the Jedi was sitting up, the blankets kicked back, with one arm tucked around the young boy's trembling shoulders. His other hand rubbed her son's back rhythmically, soothingly. He glanced up as he heard her arrive.

"A nightmare?" she whispered, agonized.

Obi-Wan nodded. "He'll calm down," he said gently. "He should be asleep again in no time." Padmé felt wryly sorry for the poor man, having to soothe not just Luke but also his distraught mother…

"Then I won't disturb you," she said, and made herself retreat back to the floor of the main room. After a while Luke's sobs quieted, faded away; after a longer time the light went out, and the previous stillness was restored. But Padmé did not get so much as five minutes of sleep the entire night; when the light of the first sun began to eat away the darkness, she gave up the enterprise altogether and decided to make herself at least marginally useful by starting breakfast.

She rummaged around the kitchen as quietly as she could. There wasn't much to rummage, really; only one simple cabinet with a few shelves. The only breakfast food she could recognize was Luke's depleted box of Bantha Bites. The rest of the packages she went through one by one, navigating the information panels on their backs, wondering what would be considered proper breakfast fare on Tatooine…

Out of the blue somebody tapped on her shoulder—she gave a startled gasp—the box in her hands went flying. She turned around to see a rather disheveled Luke backing away nervously.

"Oh, Luke, I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't hear you come in." She must have reassured him at least a little, for he stopped retreating. The silence resumed, and she noticed that Luke was again carrying the starship model she had seen last night, dragging it behind him by one wing.

"You're up very early," she said at last.

Luke shifted uneasily. "You too," he pointed out.

She smiled and bent to pick up the box. "I'm not used to the time here yet," she explained. "I couldn't fall asleep."

Luke frowned at the box in her hand. "Why'd you want _that_ for breakfast?" he demanded.

Padmé glanced at the label and shook her head at herself. Why _would_ she want jerked bantha meat? She put it back on the shelf with a wry smile. "I was just looking through the pantry to see what there was," she said. "Are you hungry for breakfast?"

Luke nodded. "I was gonna get Bantha Bites."

Padmé took the box of cereal off the shelf and held it out to him. Luke looked at her for a moment, then inched forward and finally took the box from her, mumbling something that might have been _thank you_. She watched, bemused, as Luke simply sat down on the kitchen floor with his back against the cooking unit and ate straight out of the box.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked, if only to break the ungainly silence.

Luke hugged his box a little more defensively and shook his head.

Padmé frowned slightly. "Are you sure?" Shouldn't he have some sort of drink? Or was that not typical here? She tried thinking back to those few awful days that she and Anakin had spent at the Lars' homestead, but those days seemed so long ago now, and she couldn't remember.

She stood uncertainly by the open cabinet of food, uncertain of what she should do now, and watching Luke. He ignored her except for a few furtive glances at her between bites. Finally something in her could not take the awkwardness for another moment, and her diplomatic training kicked in full force. Decisively she shut the cabinet and sat down next to Luke on the floor. "May I have some of those?" she asked.

Luke stared at her for a moment, apparently unbalanced by this unexpected move. For a few seconds she feared she would frighten him away. But all he did was shift sideways to put a bit more distance between them, and push the box towards her—reluctantly, but he did it. She crossed her feet beneath her, poured a handful of cereal into her palm, and began munching on it appreciatively. "Is this your favorite cereal?" she asked, hoping to spark some sort of conversation.

But Luke was only willing to cooperate so far with the newcomer. He nodded and immediately refocused all of his attention on his model ship. Padmé was not ready to give up yet, so she switched focus right along with him. "Does that ship have a name?" she asked him.

Luke glanced up, shaking his head shyly. "Not yet."

"Still thinking about a name?"

He nodded again.

"What kind of ship is it?" She genuinely had no idea.

"It's a T-16 skyhopper," he said, more brightly. "I want a real one when I get big enough."

Padmé raised her eyebrows with outward interest—and groaned inwardly. Make no mistake, Luke had definitely inherited his father's love affair with anything fast and airborne…wouldn't _that_ make for an interesting adolescent stage?

Luke's momentary liveliness suddenly reverted to a very Anakin-esque sullenness. She could not understand why. He shot an upset glare at her and scooted away a few inches, focusing on his skyhopper model, leaving Padmé to wonder what she'd done to offend him. With a sigh, she glanced up at the kitchen window. The first sun was shining energetically through now; its beams glinted on Luke's bleached-blond hair.

"Good morning," Obi-Wan's voice said, breaking the enchantment and disappointment. Padmé looked up to see the Jedi meander into the kitchen area, barefoot and cinching on his belt. "It would seem you've both beaten me to breakfast," he observed, switching open the cupboard. Suddenly his eyes narrowed on Luke, who was abruptly afflicted with an obvious case of guilt. "I see he wheedled you out of having to drink his milk."

Padmé stared back. "He…said he didn't want anything to drink."

"Oh, I know he doesn't _want_ anything," Obi-Wan snorted. He pressed another button, opening a food cooler, and pulled out a transparent jug full of blueish liquid. "But he knows perfectly well that he's _supposed_ to be drinking, especially now in the morning." He shot Luke another reproving glance as he poured a cup of the blue stuff and handed it to the young boy. Luke took it ruefully and made a face at the contents.

Padmé tried to get a glimpse of the cup without being too obvious. "Ah…what is that?"

"Blue milk," Obi-Wan answered. "It comes from banthas. It's a suitable and considerably cheaper substitute for water in these parts. Luke, drink."

Luke's pitifully pleading eyes dropped in defeat and he took a reluctant sip from his glass. Immediately his small face scrunched up into a comical expression of distaste. "I hate blue milk," he muttered.

Padmé worked very hard not to smile. But she must have let something in her expression slip, because her amusement was not hidden from Luke, who glared at her again.

"I believe your Aunt Beru made that word off limits," Obi-Wan intervened gently. "And it is impolite to glare at your mother."

"She's laughing at me!" Luke retorted irritably.

"She did not laugh at you."

"Well, she _wanted _to." He crossed his arms sullenly.

"But she did not," Obi-Wan reminded him. "Why don't you go and get dressed now?"

Luke sulked his way into the other room. Padmé watched him go.

"I'm sorry about that," Obi-Wan said as he poured himself a bowl of something. "He's always been quite sensitive, but his perceptions have been especially acute since the attack."

Padmé shook her head, picking herself up off the kitchen floor. "The only thing wounded is my pride. I'd thought I was better at controlling my expression." She laughed a little at herself.

Obi-Wan frowned. "No, it's nothing to do with you," he corrected her. "It's his Force sensitivity I'm speaking of."

Padmé stopped mid-smile. "I'd…forgotten that."

"Well, it's hardly your fault. You haven't had much experience with Force sensitive children."

Padmé turned her eyes towards the door where Luke had left. Another good reason for Obi-Wan to stay with them for a short time… "Is he very talented?" she murmured.

Obi-Wan nodded somberly. "Easily as much potential as Anakin. Possibly even a little more, although it's very difficult to tell right now."

Padmé blew out a measured breath, clenched her fingers around the countertop. "And the Order considered Anakin to be very strong, as I recall."

Obi-Wan smiled rather bitterly. "Anakin had the highest midi-chlorian count of any being in the history of the Jedi, Padmé," came the none-too-reassuring response.

Padmé stared at him. "I didn't realize he was that…gifted." Her shoulders slumped as she turned her bleak, haunted gaze back to the door. So that was the reason Palpatine had set his sights on her husband, all those years ago… She hadn't had much for breakfast, but she found her appetite to be suddenly lacking.

"You should have something to drink," Obi-Wan remarked into the weighted silence. "Care for some blue milk?" His eyes glinted, just a small fraction of the friendly twinkle she remembered liking so much when she first saw him on Naboo. But it was an improvement over the complete bleakness she had only barely had the energy to notice on Polis Massa.

She felt a little brightened by the reminder that time could bring at least some healing. "How bad can it be?" she said lightly, picking Luke's box of cereal up and exchanging it for the glass of blue milk Obi-Wan poured her.

Her heart skipped a beat again as she saw Luke scamper back into the kitchen. How long would it take her to get used to seeing him?

Luke started to say something to Obi-Wan—then he saw the glass of blue milk she was just about to drink. He stopped to watch raptly. Padmé raised the cup a little in a mock toast and took a sip rather absently…

It was all she could do to avoid spitting the revolting stuff out. Actually swallowing it was an act of sheer willpower, which took far too much concentration for her to even hope to control her instinctive expression of disgust.

Luke instantly broke into a big, wide grin. "Gotta drink it all," he said sweetly.


	5. Things Cookies Can't Fix

Author's Note: Well, I don't think that was TOO terribly long of a delay…once again, sorry about the lack of progress on _The Father_. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I have not yet gotten around to answering your comments, but I will do so, never fear! In the meantime, be sure to tell me whether you love or hate this latest installment…there was a lot of emotion in this one, I'm nervous it maybe comes across heavy-handed or melodramatic—so please, tell me what you think and what needs improving! I'm sure there's plenty to critique… :P

As the morning progressed, it became clear why Obi-Wan had insisted on Luke drinking earlier. The small house's climate control systems were not the most efficient, at least not under the forceful glare of two searing suns. It was sweltering, even inside, and all three of them were sweating with a vengeance by the time the chronos announced noon. She didn't recall it being this hot at the Lars homestead; perhaps it was because that home had been underground, whereas this building was exposed to the intense sunlight.

Following lunch, Obi-Wan busied himself with packing up the books and other sundry things in his bedroom, leaving Luke and Padmé to their own devices in the main room. It was not as awkward as before. For one thing, Padmé had resolutely downed that entire nauseating glass of blue milk in just a few desperate swallows, which had won her son's instant admiration. And for another thing, Obi-Wan had announced tomorrow's travel plans to Luke after breakfast—the ship-loving six-year-old had been nearly ecstatic at the prospect of a real space journey, the first he could remember. He had not been allowed outside, due to the extreme heat, but Padmé had shown him her ship from one of the windows, and described the inside to him, enjoying his bright-eyed excitement.

But during lunch, he had been asking Obi-Wan more questions, in the course of which he was gently told that he would be living with his mother from now on, and would not come back to Tatooine. Luke had been a bit unsettled, and after hearing Obi-Wan's reassurance that the Jedi would not be leaving, had become very quiet.

He hadn't withdrawn again, though. She had offered to play some games she remembered from her all-too-brief childhood, and he'd agreed shyly. She had taught him some of the clapping games Sola had taught her, so long ago. Luke proved himself a very quick study. In no time he was making fewer mistakes than she was. But when both of them tired of the game, Luke had begun to look unhappy again, pensive, and had soon run to fetch his model ship. She watched him curl up in the chair as he had last night, cuddling the skyhopper. Sensing his need to be left alone, Padmé tactfully retreated to the bedroom, where Obi-Wan was still trying to wedge things into his trunk.

"I have storage compartments on the ship if you can't get everything to fit," she offered.

Obi-Wan laughed ruefully. "That's very kind of you, but I'm going to have take it all with me at some point." He paused and stared thoughtfully at the trunk. "I must have gotten this all here _some_ way," he mused. Unable to solve the packing puzzle by staring at it, he began unloading the trunk again to try another arrangement.

"Can I help?" she asked.

"Actually, I don't think so," Obi-Wan laughed. "It's just a matter of making things fit and I honestly don't think there's room in this trunk for two sets of arms."

"Then perhaps I could get Luke's things," she suggested.

"There's nothing to get," the Jedi told her somberly. "The Tuskens torched the house. I couldn't even scavenge a spare set of clothes for him. He only has that model ship."

Padmé glanced out the door, where she could still see Luke curled up silently in the chair, idly stroking one of the skyhopper's wings. "So that's why he's so attached to it," she murmured. "I had wondered."

Obi-Wan followed her gaze out towards the youngest resident of the little house. His expression turned to one of grave concern. "It's not going to be an easy transition," he muttered.

The packing was finally accomplished, and Padmé volunteered to make dinner. Anakin had always laughed at her dismal cooking skills, but a lot had changed over the last six years. One of the few positive changes was that she could now make edible meals, an enterprise she had even started to find soothing recently. Today she was nervous, though—this would be the first meal that her son would share with her. Fretting over amounts and flavors, she found a new appreciation for her mother's culinary prowess. It didn't help matters that most of the supplies on hand were local foodstuffs that she'd never heard of before….

Her nervousness peaked as she carted the plates out to the main room and passed dinner around. Obi-Wan nodded his thanks and immediately began to eat. Luke pushed things around his plate with obvious suspicion.

"What's _that_?" he demanded, poking his fork dubiously into a dollop of what he probably thought was orange-ish goo.

"Alderaan sweet potatoes, I believe," Obi-Wan told him.

"Or as close as I could come, anyway," Padmé amended lightly.

"They're very good," Obi-Wan added. "Go on, try them."

Padmé watched with bated breath as Luke screwed up his courage and slowly stuck a tiny bite of sweet potato into his mouth. He made a face immediately, but that was clearly just a reflex, for he relaxed a few seconds later and kept working his food around his mouth, considering.

"How do you like it?" she asked eagerly once he had swallowed.

Luke frowned. "It's _okay_," he admitted, quite reluctantly.

Her fears were for the most part assuaged after dinner. He hadn't approved of everything—her efforts at broiled bantha prompted the most spectacular expression of disgust—but he ate most of his food. It was with a relieved smile that she brought out the dessert she'd managed to scrape out of Obi-Wan's pantry.

"You've become quite the chef, I see," Obi-Wan laughed, snatching a piece appreciatively. "I don't believe I've had one of these since that last trip to Alderaan."

Luke took a piece and examined it curiously. "What is it?"

"It's a cookie," she told him.

"Cookie," Luke repeated slowly, flipping it over between his fingers. She watched him break off a fragment and nibble at it tentatively, just the slightest bit nervous…

She need not have worried. Luke's eyes lit up as brightly as two stars. In no time he had gobbled his way through three cookies—if not for Obi-Wan, he would probably have tried to eat the whole plate.

"Can I have another one later, Ben?" he pleaded.

"Not tonight," Obi-Wan said firmly.

"Tomorrow?" Luke pushed hopefully.

"I'll save the last ones for you to have tomorrow," Padmé promised him.

"For breakfast?"

She laughed out loud. "I think they would make a better snack," she reasoned. "You can have them for a snack later tomorrow, on the ship."

She'd expected mention of tomorrow's trip to excite Luke as it had earlier. Instead her son's face took on a look of sad confusion. Quietly he curled up in the chair.

"What is it, Luke?" Obi-Wan asked him gently.

Luke mumbled something and played with the ends of his sleeves.

"What?" the Jedi repeated patiently.

"I want to go home," Luke whimpered. He huddled even more tightly up into his chair.

She felt her heart break along with his, and all she could do was whisper, "Oh, honey…"

Luke's miserable blue eyes flickered over to her. "I want to go home," he repeated.

Padmé wanted to reach out, gather him up; his defensive posture, however, warned her to keep her distance.

"I know, Luke," Obi-Wan said. He moved over, closer to the chair, close enough to stroke Luke's hair as his mother so longed to do. "Your mother will take good care of you. She loves you very much."

Luke sniffled. "I want Aunt Beru," he said pitifully. Such cruel words to his mother's ears, so unintentionally cruel…

"She has passed on into the Force," Obi-Wan told him. "And the Force will always be with you, Luke."

Luke nodded in a way that told Padmé this conversation was an old one by now. "But I still miss her," he whimpered. "Ben, I don't want to go, I want to go home!"

Obi-Wan smiled sadly. "You cannot go home," he said gently. "Life is always changing. All of us must learn to accept changes, whether they are good or bad."

Luke was starting to break down into tears. "I want to go _home_," he whispered insistently.

Suddenly, Luke's aching mantra stuck Padmé differently than it had either of the adults up to this point. "Would you like to go home one more time and say goodbye?" she asked him softly.

Luke's eyes switched back to her with a sort of wild hope. He nodded quickly.

"All right," Padmé said. "Let's go right now."

Obi-Wan frowned. "I doubt we have time to make that trip now," he said. "There's only about two hours of sunlight left." He gave Padmé a meaningful look, and she knew he was worried about the dangers of the desert night—namely, Tuskens.

"I have a small speeder bike on my yacht," she said. "I…I think you could fit two on it. You can take Luke on that, can't you?"

Luke looked up pleadingly at Obi-Wan. Finally the Jedi gave a reluctant nod. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes, that will be adequate."

…

It seemed like days that she was waiting in the little house, by herself. The suns were beginning to sink. Her mind kept returning to the fateful sunset so long ago when Anakin had set out on another speeder bike.

Not for the first time, the idea had crossed her mind that she had been losing her husband even before he was hers, starting with what had happened to the Tusken Raiders who had taken his mother. But when Obi-Wan asked, she had painted a well-practiced smile on her face and claimed that she was just beginning to be a worrisome mother. She had not told him about Anakin and the Tuskens. The man had suffered enough without her poisoning the memory of the last years he had had with his best friend. That pain she would keep to herself and guard with jealous zeal.

With no one else in the house, nothing to do after the dishes were loaded into the turbowasher, Padmé found herself quickly beset by the memories of Anakin. Desperately she tried to push them back, imprison the emotion. Deliberately she turned her mind to considering Luke and the near future with her son—but Anakin would not be denied. The images flashed before her eyes, tormenting, accusing, stripping away every layer of defense she had thrown up over the years, tearing from her the façades of queen, senator, rebel, daughter, sister, friend, and even mother—until all that was left was Padmé Skywalker, so unforgivingly alone.

Until all the pain had boiled itself down to a single, simple truth: she needed Anakin, and he would never be there again.

Padmé Skywalker curled up in the chair and sobbed.

She didn't know how long she sat there, how long or hard she cried. Some things could not really be measured. But after eternity her tears were finally spent, her agony finally quiet, and behind them she felt the familiar cold of the bottomless void that had usurped the place in her that once belonged to Anakin. She sighed, wiping away the last of the tears, preparing once more to endure the winter…

Then the door opened, and she saw Obi-Wan enter with Luke asleep in his arms. Hope suddenly began to stir, somewhere in that aching void; she got up shakily and walked over to Obi-Wan and her son, and gave Luke a first good-night kiss. "Sleep well," she whispered.

"Are you all right, Padmé?" Obi-Wan asked her. She met his concerned blue eyes.

"Not yet," she murmured. But a small smile stole up on her as she stroked Luke's hair fondly. "We'll get better together, you and I," she whispered to her little boy. In his sleep, Luke snuggled into her hand.

There was a small, determined pinprick of light in the middle of the void when Padmé lay down again on the floor beneath her blankets. She slept soundly for the first time in years.


	6. Jumping Forward

The three of them were not awake so early the next morning as they had been the first. Both suns were well above the horizon when Obi-Wan roused Padmé with a light shake of the shoulder. "Did you sleep well?" he asked her as she sat up slowly.

She nodded, yawning, but the thought of Luke pushed her awake with tingles of dread. "Were Luke's nightmares worse?" she asked him.

"Actually, this was the first night that he's slept all the way through," Obi-Wan informed her with a smile. "I think you're having a therapeutic effect on him already."

As if on cue, the party of interest shuffled into the main room, rubbing bleary eyes and dragging the model ship behind him. "Good morning, Luke," she said past another yawn. Luke mumbled something as he crawled up into his chair, yawning himself. Obi-Wan shook his head ruefully at both of them and retreated to the kitchen. Mother and son sat together in silence for several minutes. Being a habitual early riser, Padmé was soon quite alert.

Luke, however, seemed to have taken after his Aunt Sola rather than either of his parents. He was curled up on the chair with his head resting on one of the arms, blinking sleepily and staring off into the distance. Occasionally he would give an enormous, gaping yawn. Padmé found it was even more comical in little Luke than it was in Sola, and could not help grinning at him. "Such a sleepyhead," she teased him gently, rolling the blanket back.

Luke tried to scowl at her, but was interrupted by yet another yawn.

…

"Is that everything?" Padmé stood in the center of the main room, arms crossed, casting her eyes around critically. The house had been Spartan to start with, but now it was even barer than it had been at her arrival.

Obi-Wan emerged, pulling his trunk behind him with the repulsors switched on, his worn brown cloak donned as in the old days. "Yes, I believe it is," he said, "so long as the kitchen cupboards are empty." She nodded affirmatively; she had already taken the food stocks out to the ship.

The Jedi glanced aside. "Luke, do you have your ship?" Luke dashed over from the window alertly, pausing on the way to retrieve his model ship from its perch on the chair.

"We're going?" he asked, with oddly somber eagerness.

"We're going," Obi-Wan affirmed.

Padmé gave them both a bright, encouraging smile before stepping out…into a kiln. Shocked, she sucked in a breath—the rush of scorched air into her lungs redoubled her astonishment. She practically staggered aside to let the other two out, and while Obi-Wan sealed the door of the small house she tried to adjust to the blinding heat. Squinting, she could see Luke scampering around, oblivious to the unholy heat, chasing some darting little creature; _he_ appeared to be happy that he was outside, after spending almost all of yesterday inside.

"Obi-Wan, can I bring him?" she heard Luke chirp. Padmé was adjusted enough to searing light by now to see that her son had caught some sort of small lizard. He held it carefully out in front of him, with both hands wrapped carefully around the lean body. Surprisingly, the lizard wasn't protesting. "He likes me!" Luke deduced from this.

Obi-Wan smiled fondly. "I'm sure that he does like you," the Jedi said. "But he would not be happy for long on the ship."

Luke didn't look very happy with this diplomatic response. "Why not?" he demanded.

"He likes being out in the suns," Obi-Wan told him. "He wouldn't have anywhere to crawl or any kreetles to eat on a ship."

Luke looked sorrowfully down at the lizard. "Okay," he mumbled. Padmé watched intently as Luke obediently bent down and opened his hands, letting the lizard scurry out. Her boy watched his catch for a few seconds before turning away to follow them to the ship.

Inexplicably, a weight of fear she hadn't noticed before seemed to evaporate from her, leaving her almost able to taste the lightness and energy of years gone by. Something had happened, had changed. She thought that someday she'd understand what; for now she just enjoyed it. "Are you ready to go see the ship?" she asked him slyly.

The last hint of regret danced out of Luke's blue eyes, leaving only excitement. Forgetting the lizard entirely, he ran ahead of them towards the gray yacht. Impatiently her son waited as she keyed the code and lowered the landing ramp—but he hovered in almost painful eagerness around the bottom until she told him he could go inside. With a delighted whoop of enthusiasm, Luke tore up the ramp ahead of mother and guardian both.

Obi-Wan started to step aside so that she could go ahead, but Padmé noticed a light flashing on the ramp control panel and waved him on. She growled under her breath when she had finished inspecting the flashing light—apparently the hydraulics of the landing strut were on their last leg. Again. Repairs would be sure to run at least three thousand credits.

Had she not been a lady and a diplomat, she would have been sorely tempted to swear a blue streak at the landing apparatus. What she would not give to have Anakin's expert knowledge of all things mechanical… Suddenly she perked up at the thought of Luke. Might mechanical know-how be a genetic trait, by any chance?

Her bank account certainly hoped so. Padmé shook her head wryly and boarded the ship.

…

When Padmé arrived at the cockpit, even Obi-Wan was having a devil of a time trying to control Luke. The six-year-old was all but bouncing off the bulkhead with excitement, clearly tormented by the vast number of mysterious buttons begging to be pushed. Obi-Wan finally managed to strap the rambunctious boy into the co-pilot's seat, where he would be able to see out of the viewport without being able to touch any sensitive controls.

"Are we gonna go now?" Luke demanded as she strapped herself in.

"That's right," she told him. "Hold on!"

Luke promptly grabbed his armrest with one hand. The other was still locked on his model ship. Padmé watched him out of the corner of her eye as she revved the engines and launched the battered yacht up into the atmosphere. She didn't think she would ever forget the look of awed excitement on his face. His eyes and mouth stayed wide all the way up into space, and he was leaning as far forward as he could get, watching as the blue of the Tatooine sky melted into velvet black.

"It's pretty," he finally breathed.

Padmé had forgotten how beautiful space really was, but with Luke there to point it out she could suddenly see it again. "Yes, it is," she murmured.

"We gonna jump to hyperspace?" he asked eagerly.

"In a few minutes. We have to get out of the gravity well first," she explained.

"What's a—a grav-a-dee well?" Luke frowned, trying to work his mouth around the unfamiliar word.

"The planet pulls things in towards it," Obi-Wan spoke up from the back. "That's why you don't float up into the sky when you're walking across the desert. We have to get out of its reach before the ship can jump to hyperspace."

"Oooooohhhh," Luke said. Padmé was a bit surprised that he seemed to understand the concept so well.

Silence reigned in the cockpit for a few minutes more before the light chimed on the hyperdrive control panel. "Obi-Wan, I'm sending the coordinates over to your computer," Padmé announced, proceeding to prep the hyperdrive.

"Course set," Obi-Wan returned a few seconds later from the astrogator's station.

"Here we go, Luke," Padmé said brightly. She reached for the hyperspace lever… drew it back…

And heard Luke gasp with delight as the stars suddenly elongated and then broadened, finally twisting into the rainbow tunnel of hyperspace.

"Wow," he whispered.

Obi-Wan soon left, but she stayed with her son in the cockpit for nearly an hour, just watching the magnificent display of light outside the viewport. Luke's initial wide-eyed awe soon settled into something quieter; he stayed huddled in the co-pilot's chair, hugging his model skyhopper. He seemed to have eyes only for the stars. Padmé had eyes only for her son, brighter than all the stars combined.

"Where are we gonna go?" he piped up after the longest silence she'd ever witnessed from a conscious six-year-old.

Padmé considered for a moment and then keyed up a galactic map from the control panel projector, magnifying the Thesme sector. "This planet right here," she announced.

Luke swiveled his chair around and leaned closer, furrowing his brow again as he tried to read the name. "Thuh…thess…thess-me?"

"Very close," she said, impressed once more by how well he could read at such a young age. "Thesme."

"How come we're going there?"

She smiled. "I have a very old friend there who lets me stay with her when I'm not traveling."

"What's her name?"

"Silya Shessaun."

Luke didn't say anything, but his expression clearly stated, _That's a funny name_.

"I think you'll like her," Padmé continued. "We used to work together."

"Where?"

_His father's curiosity, all right…_ "In the Senate, before the Empire," she answered, working hard to keep her tone neutral. She hadn't had very long to start formulating parenting strategies, but one thing she did know was that a six-year-old should not be worrying about galactic politics and the troubles pertaining thereunto.

Unfortunately for her, Luke was Force-sensitive. She had no idea how conscious his use of the Force might be at this point, but he could clearly sense her underlying emotions on some level. He frowned at her words, cocked his head to the side. "Is the Empire bad?" he asked pointedly.

She reined in her emotions viciously and brought all the control she commanded to bear on her words. "There are good and bad sides to almost everything, Luke," she said carefully, hoping to buy enough time to think of something that would deflect his attention from such sensitive topics.

But Luke's still-aching heart had taken the statement in an entirely different direction. "What was good about Uncle Owen an' Aunt Beru dying?" he asked softly.

Padmé's concern switched vectors instantly, and all other emotions retreated in the wake of her instinctive compassion. "Sometimes it takes a long time before we can see," she said gently.

Luke huddled up in the chair in that familiar defensive posture, head down, all attention focused on the model ship.

"I know one good thing that happened," she finally risked. "I got to see you again."

Luke looked up, and she held her breath, waiting for his response.

Seconds passed.

Eventually she had to breathe again.

And again.

There was never a response. He only looked up at her sadly. Padmé decided to take it optimistically. After all, at least that meant there hadn't been a _negative_ reaction, right?

There was silence until a question arose that she should have expected, but hadn't had the courage to anticipate.

"Is Daddy on Thesme?"

There was such a strange hope in Luke's voice. The hope very nearly broke her heart all over again, so unaccustomed was she to associating _hope_ with _Anakin_ these days. "No, sweetheart," she managed. "No."

He waited a painful moment before speaking up again. "Is he really dead?"

Padmé turned, shocked by the frightening thought that Luke might be able to sense the terrible truth through the Force. "He…he was lost, not long before you were born," she finally said to him. "He left one day in his starfighter, and he never came home again."

"What happened to him?" Luke pleaded.

_If only I knew, sweetheart_. "I don't know, Luke."

Luke stared back out the viewport. "Did he want to come home?"

"Your daddy would never have wanted to lose us," Padmé said, careful of the phrasing of that answer. "He loved you very much."

Luke nodded quietly, eyes still focused out the viewport. "I guess he just got lost out in the dark," he said knowledgeably.

He obviously was thinking of the blackness of space, but he could not know how right he was. Padmé almost choked on her _yes_, her mother's old saying about the wisdom of a child flashing to the front of her mind.

"D'ya think he's ever gonna come home?" Luke asked her. He was looking at her now.

She smiled through gathering tears. "I pray every day that he does."

Luke shifted uncomfortably, watching. "You miss Daddy," he finally mumbled.

"Yes," she sighed. "Very much."

"An' I miss Uncle Owen an' Aunt Beru."

She nodded again. Silence reigned, and hope rose slowly in her as she waited for Luke's next words. She could almost feel it—he was so close to accepting her…

The intercom shattered the moment with a single bright _ping_. Both of them jumped.

"I've got some lunch for us," Obi-Wan announced. "Does anyone like spiced tomo-ribs?"

Luke squealed with delight and vanished out the door. Padmé wavered for a moment between aching disappointment and glowing encouragement, and finally followed Luke back into regular life.


	7. The Politics of Rebellion

_The Thesme sector…_

Silya Shessaun was growing more worried about Padmé by the hour; she was, in fact, so very worried by now that her normally stellar focus eluded her. There were few people who could have inspired such unease in the seasoned former senator, very few indeed since the deaths of her parents, but Padmé was not just another colleague. Padmé was her onetime protégé, her dearest friend, who had endured more horrors than the rest of their old group put together.

Silya had, for several months after the fall of the Republic, believed that those horrors had taken Padmé's life. But two months after the official funeral on Naboo and one month after Silya's resignation from the Senate, Padmé Amidala had arrived at her home on Thesme. When the former senator had recovered from the inexpressible shock of seeing her friend alive, she had learned that the truth was scarcely less awful.

Padmé had arrived in the dead of night, aboard an unmarked, nondescript shuttle, in the care of a man neither of them knew. He had come through the back door of her retreat home, carrying Silya's younger friend gently in his arms, and without a word delivered Padmé and an information chip, departing in silence. Padmé had slept on for several hours—but that was not enough time to process the scant information on the chip.

She had been unable to believe the medical assertions contained on that stub of silicon—unwilling to believe them. But then Padmé had awakened, and Silya had been forced to accept their sickening, objective truth.

There had been no explanations offered on the chips—only some cursory commands and medical briefs. Padmé's presence in her home was to be a secret of paramount importance—it was vital that the illusion of her death, which had been such a painful blow to Silya, be maintained. But Padmé's sudden reversal from esteemed Senator to fugitive was not the most surprising revelation. Oh, no. Far worse were the horrible wounds upon the young woman's soul.

Once the knowledge of what Padmé had suffered had been entrusted to her, it was not surprising that her young friend had been so desperate to end the agony. Not only had Padmé lost everything she had spent her life working for, she had also been bereaved of her husband and miscarried their unborn child. Silya's questions had only multiplied when Padmé sobbed out these revelations, just a few days after her arrival—but the past was too recent, and too painful for her friend to endure, let alone discuss.

For nearly a year, Silya had been unable to leave Padmé's side. She made that mistake once, leaving for a mere fifteen minutes. The fifteen minutes had cost hours of gut-wrenching, helpless waiting, praying to whatever deities might exist that Padmé would live to see the dawn.

There had been other such incidents, so many that even now, six years removed from those awful first days, Silya was unable to shake the terror that the old suicidal despair might attack again, and steal Padmé from her a second time. Every hour that went by without news of her friend—who should have arrived some days ago—drove another spike of dread into her heart.

Padmé had been at the conference, with Bail and the others; and then she had summarily vanished. That was all that Silya or anyone else seemed to know. What could have prompted it? Where had Padmé gone? How could she so easily abandon her leadership? Whatever Padmé had suffered, it had not undermined the woman's leader instinct—it was so incredibly unlike her to do this sort of thing. Silya had racked her brains mercilessly, yet could think of nothing that might have meant more to Padmé than the rebel movement. Not now.

Overwhelmed by the gnawing fear for Padmé, the senator had retired to her retreat home, far in the backlands of Thesme, far removed from any settlement. Her secret communications suite was there—the only way she had of keeping in contact with the other sectors of the fragmented resistance, or with her onetime fellow senators. If there were to be any word of Padmé, this was where it would come. Silya had stationed herself in the com suite hours ago, her senses hanging on the increasingly faint hope of an incoming message.

There was a chime at the door. "Come in," she called tightly.

Gailo, the thickening Twi'lek who managed her retreat home, appeared as the door whooshed open. "Ma'am, the yacht has just arrived," he announced.

A sob of relief caught in Silya's throat.

…

Silya emerged breathlessly onto the landing pad outside the house, just in time to see the battered yacht creak dangerously to one side as it touched down. Though Padmé claimed she was constantly repairing it, that landing strut never seemed to be in better condition by the time yacht returned to Thesme. However, as always, the structure held, and the ramp extended. Silya's eyes blurred as a familiar petite figure glided down the ramp to her.

"It's so good to see you, Silya," Padmé laughed, seizing her up in the most energetic hug Silya could remember from her in years. When they finally stood apart, Silya could see that Padmé's brilliant smile of old was beginning to make a reappearance.

"You—Padmé, you look so well," she murmured in delighted disbelief. Slowly, the former senator's unaccustomed raging emotion began to subside into familiarity. Padmé was all right. In fact, she appeared better than she had in six years. Silya let her smile ease into her customary poise and dignity.

"I brought guests," Padmé announced unexpectedly.

Silya's eyes widened. "Friendly ones, I assume."

"Very friendly." Behind Padmé, a tall robed figure appeared at the top of the boarding ramp, lugging a repulsor-case behind. Silya caught her breath in surprise as the man joined them and drew back his hood.

"Master Kenobi," she said, diplomatic instinct thankfully overriding her shock. "Welcome to Thesme."

"Thank you, Lady Shessaun," he returned. "Your hospitality is most appreciated."

"I am happy to assist the Jedi in any way possible," she answered, her gentleness tempering the formal words with compassion. He inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Will there be another Jedi joining us?" she inquired after a pause. "You did say guests, Padmé."

Padmé's eyes flickered strangely—there was almost contrition in them. Now why would that be?

"Not a Jedi, precisely," the famous General Kenobi responded. "Come out, Luke, there's no need to hide."

Silya was surprised for the third time in about as many minutes when a small blond boy emerge hesitantly from behind Master Kenobi, garbed in plain, worn white. His blue eyes were locked on her suspiciously.

"Luke," Padmé said, "this is my friend, Silya Shessaun. Silya"—she paused, drew in a bracing breath—"this is my son, Luke."

…

It was dark on Thesme when they arrived, and also in the middle of Luke's sleep cycle. The little boy was apparently fearful of going to sleep alone, and so Master Kenobi retired with him, not long after they had arrived. Padmé and Silya were left alone in silence, curled in the spacious chairs on the back porch, staring out at the velvet night displayed on the hillside behind the house. It was several minutes before Silya spoke.

"You lied."

Padmé tucked her feet underneath her, wrapped her favorite blanket more tightly around her shoulders. "I did."

Silya felt her muscles harden resentfully. "Might I ask why?" she demanded.

It didn't take a Jedi to sense Padmé's turmoil. "I was afraid for him," she whispered. "I couldn't take the risk."

"_I'm_ a risk."

Padmé gave a sharp laugh. "No one is infallible, Silya. If I've learned nothing else in the last six years, it's that."

Her friend had certainly _learned_ a great deal more than that in the last six years, Silya thought bitterly, if a lie of this magnitude was any indication. "I had thought that we were close."

"We are," Padmé answered softly.

Silya switched her eyes icily onto Padmé, forcing the younger woman to meet her stare. "I find that rather difficult to believe."

Padmé did not flinch away. If anything, her stare was _more_ pointed. "Silya, my own parents don't know about Luke."

Silya's eyebrows twitched. There was more. She could feel it shivering through the air. "So, your baby didn't die," she continued flatly. "How about your husband?"

Padmé's face instantly contorted with inexpressible grief, a grief no one could possibly enact at will. Silya felt her anger soften as she watched her younger friend search helplessly for words. Whatever had truly happened to her husband, he was certainly dead to Padmé.

"I wish I could tell you everything, Silya," Padmé finally breathed out shakily. "Believe me, I wish I could."

"You can," Silya told her firmly. She reached out on impulse and took Padmé's hand. The younger woman sucked in a trembling breath, shook her head.

"It would be too dangerous," Padmé got out. She reached up, wiped away fledgling tears, squaring her shoulders—the near breakdown had been forced into retreat. "Please trust me."

Silya pursed her lips and gripped Padmé's hand more firmly. "Can you at least tell me about Luke?"

For several seconds, she feared that even that would be denied. But when Padmé spoke, by some miracle, it was not a refusal.

"Luke was born prematurely. I—I was in no condition to care for him at the time. You know that."

She certainly did.

"I sent him to live with—with some relatives of my husband," Padmé continued softly. "He's been there until now."

"Why didn't you go and get him once you had recovered?"

Padmé looked away again. "I can't explain."

Only her experience as a politician kept Silya from snarling with frustration. "All right," she said carefully. "Then why did you get him now?"

"My in-laws were killed," Padmé answered. "I have nowhere safer to send him."

"Padmé," Silya began carefully, "you're busy leading a rebellion against a militant government. Surely you can think of a safer situation if you're so worried."

"That's right," Padmé agreed.

A strange, awful comprehension screamed to life. She knew what Padmé was going to say even before it came…

"I'm stepping down," Padmé announced.

Silya let go of her hand suddenly. The taste of betrayal rose, sour, instinctive. "You can't do that," she breathed. "We _need_ you, Padmé!"

"I have a son to raise," Padmé returned firmly.

Silya stood and began pacing measured steps across the balcony, frantically constructing an argument that would halt the advance of this impending disaster. "Padmé, you're not the only one of us with a child. Take Bail Organa. He has a daughter."

The strangest expression came over Padmé's lovely features. She looked away, working facial muscles. "Our situations are not the same."

Silya ground her teeth furiously behind evenly sealed lips. "You have a responsibility to the people you lead," she pushed. Maybe an appeal to her sense of civic duty would be more effective.

Quite to her surprise, Padmé's eyes narrowed in evident anger. "Silya Shessaun, I do not require a lecture on the subject of responsibility. My responsibility as a mother supersedes any other."

Silya was silenced.

Padmé's gaze shifted away to the landscape. "I'm not leaving," she spoke finally. "I just...need to let someone else take the lead for a while. Our cause is no less important to me, but I have no business running anything if I can't take care of my own son. It's my _responsibility_ to ensure that he is kept safe."

"Why is this secrecy so necessary?" Silya burst out. "Bail and Mon were on the Delegation too, Padmé. The Emperor has not threatened _them_, and you were on better terms with the man than they were!"

"Silya—"

"Padmé, _no one_ is searching for you, the entire galaxy thinks you're dead, and Luke is as safe as any other child! Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but you're being ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous," Padmé countered evenly.

"Prove it," Silya snapped. "Prove to me that this is more than mere paranoia."

Padmé remained silent for several seconds. "I can't tell you," she finally whispered. "I can only ask you to trust me."

Tense minutes passed before Silya sat back down heavily. "I trust you."

Padmé reached out, and took her hand again with a faint smile. "Thank you, Silya."

They sat again in silence, watching the night stars.

"How long will you be here?" Silya finally asked quietly.

"I'm not sure. I need to get a call to Bail before he reaches Alderaan and set up a rendezvous, so our stay will depend on that date."

Silya did a few summary calculations. "We should do that now. If he's made good time back from the conference he'll only be twenty-four or so hours out from Alderaan."

_In deep space…_

Bail knew it was important when his aide shook him awake a little more than halfway through the _Tantive IV_'s night cycle. Standing orders dictated to Bail's officers that the Senator only took calls during the night if the Emperor was on the other end—or someone of equal importance. And sure enough, Bail Organa considered the voice that greeted him in his com suite to meet those lofty criteria.

In his eyes, in fact, Padmé Amidala was worth more than the Emperor any time of day or night.

There was no image, of course—the connection was voice-only both ways, and a scrambler was on task to distort the voice signatures just to make sure. But by now, Bail was as familiar with Padmé's distorted voice as he was with her natural one, and no affirmation was necessary. Besides, he had been expecting a call from her, though perhaps not as soon as this.

"Hello," she said cheerfully from her end. Mildly he wondered where exactly "her end" might be.

"It's good to hear from you," he answered. "I trust your desert jaunt was enjoyable?"

"It was," she responded. "Shall we discuss it in a few days?"

Bail was taken aback. He'd not expected Padmé to request a rendezvous—especially not so soon after the risky business of this latest conference. But she was probably the most intelligent woman of his acquaintance, and she would not have made such a request without very good reason.

"I'll have to check my calendar," he said. More like check with the navigator and Captain Antilles for an appropriate rendezvous site between here and Alderaan, but he could hardly allow _that_ to be transmitted across the galaxy. She'd understand him. He pressed his comlink buzz key to summon Captain Antilles. "Did you get that note I left you?"

There was a pause. "I must not have seen it."

Hmm. So she _wasn't_ responding to the message he'd transmitted to her cell. Had she been on Tatooine all this time? "Well, it can wait," he said. _Until this crazy rendezvous…I hope you know what you're doing, Padmé Amidala…_

The door hissed open to admit Captain Antilles. Bail waited until it was again sealed and locked before speaking. With a hand down on the key to mute the audio receptors of the com unit, he addressed the officer. "Raymus, I need a safe rendezvous point between here and Alderaan," he muttered.

The captain's eyes flickered up to the ceiling while he pondered. Bail could almost see the man switching on a detailed mental holoprojection of the Perlemian Trade Route. "Obroa-Skai would do," he finally said.

Bail considered for a brief second before nodding. "When will we arrive?"

"It's about four more hours down the route," Antilles answered briskly. "Then there'll be a micro-jump of an hour or so to reach the system."

"That will do," the Senator decided. "Reset course for Obroa-Skai, please."

The captain nodded and left. When the room was again secure, Bail released the mute key. "I'll be stopping at Obroa-Skai tomorrow," he said conversationally. "Perhaps we can catch up then."

There was a considering silence from the other end. "Yes, that sounds good," she decided. "I may be somewhat late, though."

"There's no rush," Bail assured her. There were potential resistance prospects on Obroa-Skai—they'd been rather far down on his list of priorities, given the presence of a major (and particularly zealous) branch of the Imperial University, but if he was going to be in system he might as well do a little scoping. Moreover, he had a good excuse for stopping by the system, as one of his former political professors now taught at one of the many universities. "I have several errands to run."

"Then I'll see you there."

The transmission closed. Bail shut down his terminal, leaned back in his chair, and wondered when, exactly, he'd transformed from his old, cautious self to an impulsive, risk-running revolutionary.


	8. Baptism

_The Thesme sector…_

Padmé had risen earlier than was normal, awakened by the thunderstorm that swept in overnight. It had been too long since she'd heard a good loud thunderstorm, and so the early hours of the morning found her curled on the balcony over the hillside. The storm soothed her, and her peace was perfect until she caught, rising faintly from inside the house, a frightened young voice.

She stood quickly, wrapping her blanket carefully around her shoulders, and went inside. The lights were dimmed to the minimum, and the morning sun was hopelessly obscured by the raging clouds outside, so she could not see much—but the soft cries grew clearer. She found Luke huddled behind a sofa in one of the sitting rooms adjacent to the main hall, his eyes wide with distress and his hands clamped over his ears.

"Oh, Luke!" She darted forward lightly and rubbed her hands through his hair, not even stopping to think about being cautious and not taking things too quickly. "It's a thunderstorm, honey, that's all," she soothed.

Luke stared back at her—belatedly she realized he obviously had never heard of such a thing. There was another clap of thunder and he jumped, yelping. "It's loud," he whimpered. "It sounds like bombs."

Padmé ran her hands through his hair, eager to reassure, and smiled at him. "It's called thunder, sweetheart," she told him. "It's just noise, it can't hurt you."

Luke winced as a fresh crack of thunder resonated through the house, but he didn't whimper this time. "You sure?" he asked dubiously.

She nodded again. "What are you doing out here?" she asked him gently, easing her hands away from him before he could start objecting to her touch.

"I wanted breakfast," he muttered. "'Cept nobody was up and then I couldn't remember which way to get back to Ben. And then it started—thun-ding."

"Well, why don't you come out on the balcony with me and I can have a droid get you some breakfast?"

Luke hesitated, and she bit the inside of her lip hopefully. Her heart leapt when he finally nodded. She straightened up, offered him a cheerful hand, which he picked up shyly, and led him out to the balcony door. He hesitated when he heard the increased loudness of the thunderclaps, the pounding rain; so she went out first to prove that it was perfectly safe. She came around the corner, and drew in a deep breath of the rain-scented air. "Come on out, Luke, it's all right," she called behind her.

After another moment of hesitation, Luke emerged from the entrance and came around the corner into full view—and his blue eyes instantly got as wide as portholes. "Mommy, lookit that!" he breathed.

She turned to see what had so awed him, but it was only the usual view of the forest surrounding Silya's home. Pretty enough, yes, but hardly breathtaking even on the best day—and today was definitely not the best day, due to the thunderstorm…

"Lookit," Luke breathed out again, dashing past her to the balcony railing, suddenly heedless of the thunder. He grabbed the bars in his small hands and stood on tiptoe, transfixed. As she watched, he crouched down and carefully slipped an arm out into the rain, turning his cupped hand upward until he could carry a palm full of rainwater back to her—and suddenly she realized just what had amazed her son so. "Mommy, the water's just fallin' right out of the sky!" Luke proclaimed excitedly. "See?"

Her eyes shone gently as the magnitude of his experience became clear. "It's raining," she told him.

Luke repeated the word with the awe of one who had come face to face with a thing straight out of a fairy tale, staring intently at his handful of rainwater and stirring a finger around in it. Had Anakin felt the same way the first time he saw rain? "This is so weird," he murmured. "How can they just let the water go falling all over the place?"

"This planet has much more water," she explained. "The rain is what makes the trees grow outside."

Luke twisted back around to see the trees, which fascinated him only slightly less than the rain. "They don't have any vaporators?"

"They don't need them here," Padmé said. "They use pipes to bring water from the lakes and rivers."

"What're those?"

Luke's expression became hopelessly flabbergasted as Padmé tried to explain the concept of enormous quantities of water all sitting in one place. He kept shaking his head and objecting furiously, firing off flurries of questions and repeating previous ones, as though expecting more realistic answers the second time around. Had Padmé told him she owned a time travel device, the boy could not have been more incredulous.

The rain, combined with the verdant forest and his mother's wild tales of lakes, excited Luke terribly, so much so that he completely forgot to be nervous about the thunder. When the droid arrived with his breakfast, she was almost unable to get him to sit down and eat—but at last she hit upon the right tactic.

"Luke, after breakfast, I'll take you down through the garden and show you the lake," she promised.

"There isn't a _lake_," Luke retorted, with as much contempt as if she'd just declared that planets were actually flat—but hard as he tried he couldn't repress that undertone of deathly curiosity.

"Well, you'll have to eat your breakfast before you can find out," she retorted. Luke sat down instantly and devoured half a plate of nerf sausage. Padmé smiled smugly to herself as she chipped away at her own breakfast. Maybe she was starting to get the hang of this parenting business after all!

They were not alone much longer before Obi-Wan appeared on the balcony. "I see you're both—"

"Ben, Ben, lookit the rain!" Luke squealed, vaulting out of his chair and dragging Obi-Wan by the hand over to the balcony edge. The thunder had calmed into distant rumbles, but the rain was still coming down in sheets. Padmé watched from the table as Luke jabbered away excitedly, pointing raptly at what must be to him a miracle.

When Obi-Wan at last coaxed Luke back to the breakfast table, the Jedi Master was smiling, but she saw a bittersweet memory hiding in the man's eyes. There must have been such a moment long ago with Anakin. She wished she could have been there.

"Mommy said she's gonna take me to see a lake," Luke chattered on, oblivious to the undercurrents of sorrow. "Is there really a lake?"

"Well," Obi-Wan said jovially, "I wouldn't know. I suppose you'll have to wait and see."

…

Luke could hardly contain his excitement when breakfast was finally over and Padmé led the way to the garden door. She bundled him up in one of her waterproof coats, which was far too big for him, dragging along the ground comically and hanging over his hands. But Luke was much too enthusiastic to care about the fact that he could hardly see from underneath the hood. She buttoned up her own coat and grinned at him mischievously. "Are you ready?"

He nodded eagerly, pushing back the brim of the hood enough that she could glimpse his bright eyes in the second before it fell back.

"How about you, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan gave a half-smile, and drew his brown cloak around him a little more securely. Luke had insisted that the Jedi Master not be left behind on this exhilarating venture. "After you, milady," he said mildly.

"Let's go, then," she announced. Luke bounced on his toes impatiently while the door opened and burst past her as soon as she was outside.

Seconds later, a chiming, beautiful sound came to her—possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever heard—a single, ever-so-slightly hesitant giggle.

He was laughing.

For the first time since she'd walked into that hut on Tatooine, Luke was laughing.

Ahead of her, he trampled flamboyantly through a puddle on the garden path, and turned around and jumped into it, and laughed again. Tears sprang to her eyes as she watched him play wildly in the rain.

"Look at him," she whispered fiercely.

Obi-Wan came up alongside her, with his familiar understated smile. "He's a lively one," the Jedi remarked, a bit wistfully.

"Like his father?"

He nodded. "Anakin loved the rain," he murmured.

She smiled through tears, tears that for once did not spring from sorrow. "He taught me to love it too," she murmured.

Obi-Wan drew his cloak tighter, and did not respond.

"Ben, Mommy, come on!" Luke squealed happily. His enormous grin was just barely visible beneath the huge floppy hood, and the ends of his coat-sleeves flapped merrily as he flailed his short arms in the air. "Come jump!"

With blithe abandon, Padmé skipped forward and leapt straight into the middle of the deepest puddle available.

…

Mother and son splashed through every puddle they could find the whole way down the path, while Obi-Wan followed along with typical Jedi solemnity. Padmé found herself laughing every bit as enthusiastically as little Luke. It had been so long since she could forget her sorrows, and even though Luke's had only lasted for some days it must have seemed a lifetime to him too—the rain was a cleansing one for both of them.

At last they frolicked around the final bend in the path and emerged at the small lake. Luke froze, his mouth wide open; after an awestruck second he wriggled his hood off so he could see better. "No _way_," he breathed.

Padmé almost had to bite her tongue to resist chanting _I told you so_. She felt like she was a little girl again, playing with Sola at Varykino. "Isn't it pretty?" she said instead.

Luke nodded mutely.

…

Silya spent a sleepless night, and at first light she had locked herself in her office, but though she waged war for hours she could not focus on her work anymore than she had been able to sleep. Her mind refused to be distracted from its fixation on the lovely face of Padmé Amidala—a face Silya could gladly drive a fist into right about now.

Fortunately for Padmé, though Silya might have resigned her post six years ago, she was still too much the Senator to go around hitting people who made her upset.

Was Padmé her dearest friend? The answer was still yes, but after all of this Silya could hardly help wondering just how much she really knew about Padmé Amidala. Her young friend had, she reflected bitterly, come a long way from the Apprentice Legislature, a _long_ way indeed. Once upon a happier time, Silya would never have thought of Padmé and deception in the same breath, but those times were gone. Possibly forever, after this latest revelation. What other momentous secrets was her _friend_ concealing?

Her stylus smacked furiously against the far wall of her office, but not hard enough.

Padmé's newfound vices didn't stop at deception either. No, now she was even going so far as to abandon her work with the resistance!

A small, rational voice somewhere in her mind tried to remind her that Padmé had not said _that_—only that she would no longer be leading—but the rest of her was too angry for objectivity. She surged out of the office chair and paced helplessly across the carpet. Her anger and sense of betrayal might have cooled more quickly had there been anything she could do about the situation.

But there wasn't. That was another thing she had _thought_ she'd known about Padmé—her friend was reasonable, a being of powerful intellect, not ruled by anything so primitive and temperamental as emotions. But Padmé had succumbed to the tyranny of the maternal instinct; Silya could see it in her eyes. It was all the more powerful for the years of separation; there would be no dissuading her now.

Silya sat heavily back down in her chair and massaged her temples. Her flash of temper had dissolved into dull frustration, incomprehension. If she only knew the full story, all this might make sense.

Maybe…maybe all this was just Padmé's reaction to being suddenly reunited with her son? Silya straightened, feeling a flash of hope. Of course—of course. In a short time, all this understandable euphoria would surely wear off, and Padmé would come fully to her senses, resume involvement with the resistance leadership, where she was so desperately needed.

Yes…yes. Silya blew out a breath through still-gritted teeth. It grated against every nerve, but she would let Padmé go for now. She had nothing against little Luke, but after all he was just one person, and Padmé was needed by many. In a few months at the most, her younger friend would surely see reason. Silya would bide her time until then.

…

Thankfully the rainstorm stopped a short while before Padmé planned to leave Thesme; otherwise it would probably have taken all three adults to drag Luke inside the yacht. They had waited until mid-afternoon to board; the ship had needed to be restocked and refueled, and at Padmé's request Silya had sent her Twi'lek servant Gailo into the nearest town to track down a few new outfits for Luke, who was still wearing the same battered white clothes from Tatooine.

The results of the shopping trip were not exactly haute couture. Padmé frowned when she unsealed the package, and Silya raised an eyebrow when Luke emerged in his not-exactly-new garb. It was a plain jumpsuit, dusty blue in color, frayed at the edges and a little too big for him; it was hardly what Padmé had once dreamed of dressing her baby in, all those years ago.

But then, nothing about her life was the way she'd dreamed it was going to be.

She forced herself to be optimistic. As far as Luke was concerned, it was great; he wore an enthusiastic grin and was busy jumping and rolling around in it, getting used to the feel. It was presentable, and it would probably be a match for Luke's energy. And it _did_ bring out the vibrant color of his eyes nicely.

All the same, she promised herself that once this meeting with Bail was over and they'd found someplace to settle down, she would take Luke on a shopping trip and build him a proper wardrobe.

"That should do nicely for now," Obi-Wan commented, coming up alongside her with the last packing case they had to load on the ship. "Non-descript."

Padmé nodded. Now that she thought about it, Luke was definitely not going to attract unwanted attention wearing such a typical jumpsuit.

Obi-Wan called Luke, who followed him up the ramp with a wave good-bye at Silya. Padmé turned to her friend, who was standing at a distance from the ship with arms crossed and lips sculpted into a very considered smile. A stab of guilt made itself felt in her stomach despite her resolve. She wished there had been a way to avoid this, wished she could tell Silya everything. But she couldn't put her friend in such a dangerous position, not just to make herself feel better.

"I'm sorry, Silya," she said softly, reaching out to take her friend's hand.

Silya's measured smile faded once confronted with sincerity. Padmé didn't quite understand the bizarre mixture of emotions just visible in her friend's eyes. "He's a lovely child," she said neutrally. "I'm sure he won't give you much trouble."

Padmé glanced over her shoulder apprehensively, hearing Luke's faint chatter, and remembering all the horror stories Obi-Wan had told her of Anakin's young years. "I hope I'll make a good mother," she murmured.

Silya coughed. "Padmé, you've led entire nations. I think you can manage one boy."

Padmé just shook her head. "I'm about to find out."

There was a pause between them, during which the faint mirth faded away. Silya was the one to break it a s the ship's engines began to hum. "Go on and do what you think you need to," she said slowly, her eyes on the platform. "But don't forget about us."

Padmé swept her friend into an impulsive hug. "I won't," she whispered fiercely. Both women were wiping their eyes as they separated. "I'll visit," Padmé promised as she turned to the ship.

"Stay safe!"

…

As luck would have it, the café where Bail would be meeting Padmé this time was a reasonably pleasant place—not too upscale that it would seem odd for any decently dressed being to stop in, and not too common that it would seem out of order for a senator to pay it a visit. Their customary formula had yielded a welcome result this time around. They used the same pattern every time a meeting was necessary—go to the second most populous city on the planet, take a right onto the street in front of the main entrance to the city hall, take a right at the second intersection, and walk into the second café on the right side of that street. It was an easy way to avoid broadcasting their exact rendezvous destination on the Holonet, and thus far had served its purpose well.

Pretending to study Senate reports dutifully over a cup of local tea, Bail secretly wondered what could have prompted Padmé to request such a dangerous meeting. He dreaded what news she might bring from Tatooine—had something happened to Luke? He'd seen the boy only once, as a newborn infant, but distant though he was, he was his own daughter's twin brother, and Bail had always felt a vague, semi-parental kinship with young Luke Skywalker, an echo of his love for little Leia.

It was, understandably, rather difficult for him to speak with Padmé anymore. Her presence was an immediate reminder that Leia was not truly his daughter, as dearly as he loved her. And he knew it must be equally difficult for Padmé to be reminded of the children she could not raise herself.

The senator sighed a little, prodding his datapad with the stylus. Half of him wanted to praise the circumstances that had brought their precious Leia to Alderaan; the other half was constantly bitter towards a galaxy that prevented Padmé from being the wonderful mother she surely would have been. In the end, the plain truth was that all Bail Organa could do about it was be the best father and friend that he could. He leaned back and surveyed the vista of Obroa-Skai from his vantage perch atop the café's lofted balcony. He'd always liked Obroa-Skai. It brought memories of less troubled times, when he'd been a young man studying advanced political science. This café was nice, but he wished they could have met in the wonderfully antiquated library across the street—

"Senator?" He looked away from the view; the café hostess had come up to his solitary table. "Senator Organa, you said you were expecting an acquaintance to arrive?"

He sat up a little straighter, setting the stylus down. "Yes indeed. Has she arrived?"

"I believe so, although not alone."

Not alone? It must be a member of one of her resistance cells. "Please, escort her out here," he requested with a reassuring smile.

In a few moments, a petite brunette emerged through the archway, dark ringlets falling loose around her face above plain trousers and a space jacket. She did a turn around and smiled brightly when she spotted him seated back in the corner shadow, well out of the sight of those below in the streets.

Bail started to smile back. But then Padmé's gaze shifted down, looking back inside the archway, where her left arm was still hidden. She whispered something he couldn't hear and moved further out onto the balcony.

Clutching the other end of her left arm was a small, blonde, and very nervous boy.

No. It couldn't be. It _mustn't_ be. She wouldn't have.

He smiled mechanically as Padmé led the little boy over to his table and helped him pull out a chair. The child clambered up, his progress hampered a little by the large model ship he was toting along with him. She pushed the chair in, and only then did she settle herself in the one opposite Bail.

"It's wonderful to see you," Bail heard himself say in automatic response to her nod of greeting.

The blonde boy squirmed a little in his chair. "Mommy, is that your friend?" he asked.

_Mommy_. Dear Force. She had.

Bail couldn't help staring. So this was Luke Skywalker. Distantly he noted that the little boy didn't look even remotely similar to his twin sister—with that blonde hair, those keen blue eyes, he was undoubtedly going to take after his father.

What in blazes was the child _doing_ here? He was supposed to be hidden safely away on Tatooine!

"Yes, this is Senator Organa," Padmé told him. The hostess arrived behind them and Padmé quickly ordered a drink for herself and a snack for Luke. They made small talk until Luke's order of gel-cubes arrived. Leia loved those things; Luke had never seen them before, but he was quickly enraptured after discovering that they doubled as moldable playing matter. In no time he was completely absorbed in crafting tiny models of ships and devouring them, freeing Bail to ask Padmé the thousand questions burning circles through his brain.

"Why is Luke here?" he asked tersely under his breath.

Padmé pursed her lips for a second. "My husband's relatives were killed," she answered at last.

Bail sucked in a breath, terrified that the Empire had somehow discovered them—but Padmé shook her head reassuringly. "It was a random raid," she said. "It does happen occasionally in that area."

"Padmé, it's still foolish to bring him here," Bail continued tightly.

"We're not alone," she responded calmly. "A friend of my husband came along."

So Master Kenobi was nearby as well. And this close to the Core?

"Don't worry," she continued in a lower voice, "this is as much as I'm going to risk. It's just this once."

"Padmé, given your, ah, volunteer involvements, I don't think it's wise to keep bringing him along," Bail shot back, still only just above a whisper. "You could get busy quickly."

They both glanced at Luke. He was now mashing two gel cubes together and sculpting a bigger and better masterpiece. Paying no attention to their tense conversation.

He looked back at Padmé, and did not like the somewhat guilty expression she was now wearing. "Well, I plan on taking a few years off," she said, glancing down at the table top.

Bail forced himself to remain calm. This conversation was becoming much too important to risk any miscommunication, which was liable to happen with all of this cautious, multi-layered language. They needed to go somewhere where they could speak openly without fear of being overheard.

"Well, I'm afraid I have a meeting at a university some blocks away, but perhaps you would care to join me for dinner later aboard my ship?" he suggested.

Padmé nodded. "That will work out fine. We have some shopping to do anyway." She let her eyes rest fondly on little Luke, and Bail watched as her hand inched slowly closer to the boy—but she gave an odd start, and pulled back. Her eyes flicked down, seemingly troubled. It was only for an instant, though; there was no trace of disconcertment when she looked back across at him a second later.

"Here's my comlink number," Padmé continued, pulling over a disposable napkin and scrabbling the number down with his pen. That was a trick they'd learned working with the resistance, one that would allay the suspicions of anybody who might be watching. After all, who would be stupid enough to use an unencrypted comlink number to communicate with a secret contact?

Certainly not two high-stakes politicians. Padmé already knew where and how to reach his ship; the number would never be used.

"Call me when your meeting is over and we'll come," she said brightly, handing the napkin to him. "I'd love to hear how your family is doing."

A familiar ache swelled faintly in his chest. It was the same pang that he felt every time he thought about Padmé and Leia together, but it was fiercer this time, for Padmé's eyes were again resting on Leia's brother, and he could see the pained wistfulness in them. It made him feel vaguely guilty, even though he knew that pain was entirely the fault of a different man. "And I as well," he murmured, with another disbelieving glance at Luke.

This time, Luke was staring back at him keenly. He felt convinced the boy had somehow divined his thoughts and conflicting emotions, and understood them better than he did. The sensation was a familiar one—Leia did it to him all the time.

"This evening, then," he announced, breaking his eyes away from Luke's and summoning the hostess with a gesture.


	9. Conversations

Author's Note: Hey, what do you know? An update! Finally got around to it. I have a general idea of where the story's going from here—and wonder of wonders, I actually have an ending to it. Whaddaya know…Well, we won't get to that for a while, anyway. But, to hopefully make up for my ungodly slowness in updating, this chapter is a nice long one. It took me a while to get started on the middle section of this chapter. I was debating whether or not I should use a certain character from canon, but in the end I decided to create a new one—so tell me what you think of him. Assuming, of course, you can find it in your hearts to forgive me…

…

"Welcome aboard the _Tantive_, ma'am."

"Thank you, Captain…?"

"Antilles, ma'am."

"Antilles," Padmé repeated cheerfully, as if she'd never before in her life met Captain Raymus Antilles. "I'm—"

"Ryra Dyelin," the captain finished. "The senator's mentioned you a few times. It's an honor to meet you. I'm given to understand you were classmates at university."

"Yes. Legislative procedural theory, sophomore year." Fortunately, Padmé bore a more than passing resemblance to the real Ryra Dyelin, who had indeed been a classmate of Bail Organa. Also fortunately, Ryra Dyelin had foregone a publicized political career to start an extremely small business in antique cyo-ceramics, which she had then foregone to work undercover for the Alderaan resistance, and so Padmé could easily use her name whenever it was necessary to meet with Bail.

"Well, ma'am, the senator's expecting you," Raymus continued after a brief, polite pause. "I'll show you to the dining cabin."

The walk was brief, and soon she was directed into a crisp white chamber—one she remembered much too well. There was a table, already set with dinner, and there were chairs, and there was Bail. And there were the blurred, but no less agonizing, memories of another meeting that had taken place in this same cabin six years ago. Another meeting—and a painful parting.

This was the last place that she had seen her children before they were taken. She'd been in this cabin since then, more than once—but now, after all that had happened, the emotion refused to be controlled, and she sank with welling tears into her chair. She couldn't tell her joy apart from her frustration apart from her sorrow apart from her relief apart from…she couldn't even tell what all the emotions were.

Thank the Force there were no recording devices in this room.

"Are you all right, Padmé?" Bail asked quickly.

She wiped away the tears and nodded, perhaps a little hastily. "Just remembering," she breathed.

Bail suddenly remembered something too. "Where's Luke?"

"He's eating with Obi-Wan, back on my yacht," she said. "I think he's had enough excitement for one day."

"Well, perhaps we should follow their lead and enjoy dinner before we discuss anything," Bail suggested.

She laughed weakly. Anakin, had he been here, would undoubtedly have made the same suggestion, if less eloquently. "I think so."

Dinner was delicious, but it would have been more so had there not been so many words hanging in the air waiting to be spoken. By the time they reached dessert, neither of them wanted to put off the difficult discussion any longer. And Padmé was much too eager to hear news of her daughter. "How are Breha and Leia?" she asked over dessert, with as much neutrality as she could muster.

"You know, Padmé, you don't have to pretend you're equally interested in both of them," Bail observed quietly. "Leia's doing very well." He smiled at her to make sure she knew he wasn't angered, but even six years hadn't made much of a dent in the awkwardness between them.

"I miss the days when neither of us was so worried about stepping on each others' toes," Padmé sighed.

Bail nodded thoughtfully. "I think it's going to get easier as we go," he said. "Please—don't be sorry you asked me."

She was silent for a moment. "Bail, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have raise one of my children than you and Breha. I'll never be sorry I asked you. I just hate that it's made our friendship so…" She gestured one hand helplessly. _Awkward_ was not quite good enough a word.

"I know it's been painful for you," Bail nodded gravely. "But things cannot be changed now." He felt his chest tighten, afraid of what she might say—especially now that things _had_ changed with one of the twins Padmé had been forced to give up.

What if she had decided that she wanted Leia back as well?

"I know they can't," Padmé murmured, staring distantly into the wall.

Bail could breathe again. His reaction didn't escape her; she fixed her eyes on him sharply. Padmé might not be a Jedi, but Bail suspected that some of it had probably rubbed off on her from her husband—he had no doubt that she had a very good grasp of what he'd been thinking just then.

"I'm sorry," he said. And then—because even if it hurt her, it was true, and she deserved the truth—"We love Leia as though she was ours."

Padmé drew in a labored breath. "I'm glad you do," she whispered.

And a relieved Bail knew that she meant it.

"She's doing very well with her school," he said, hoping to lighten the mood. "Her favorite subject is government, just like her mother."

Padmé smiled proudly.

"However, I daresay she's going to have more of her father's temperament," Bail continued. "I just got a message from my sister Tia the other day. It seems Leia got fed up with having her hair arranged and sawed off both braids with a pair of scissors."

Padmé stared at him, caught somewhere between horror and mirth. "Yes," she finally agreed, "that's definitely Anakin's fault."

There was silence for just a second before Bail spoke. "I suspect he'll also prove to be responsible for the looks of young Luke," he said carefully. "That boy's grown quite a bit since I saw him last."

Padmé nodded. "He certainly has." She pushed her dessert plate back and met his gaze with shining eyes. It hadn't even been two weeks since Padmé had left that conference, and the difference between the woman he'd seen then and the one sitting across from him now was startling. Luke's arrival seemed to be working miracles…which only made it all the harder for Bail to broach the painful truth.

"Padmé," he said gently, "I don't think…" He couldn't go on. It might be obvious to all that it was the shrewdest course of action, but how could he possibly expect the poor woman to give up her child a second time? Surely even Yoda could not have brought himself to inflict another round of suffering, despite all his wisdom; and it was already apparent that Obi-Wan couldn't do it.

She knew what he left unsaid, however. "Maybe it isn't the safest choice," she murmured, "but he needs me."

"And, I think, you need him." Bail felt himself resigned. He couldn't say how young Luke felt about his mother, but the Padmé of the last six years, deprived of children she loved dearly, had been a pitiful shadow of her old self. Now—now he could see the vibrancy of old starting to resurface. It might, he thought, be worth the risk to see her even partially restored. "Well," he said, "you're his mother. In the end it's your decision. I'll do whatever I can for you."

"I appreciate that," she said. "But…Bail, I'll have to bow out."

He'd sensed this coming, but that didn't make it any more pleasant once it arrived. "You did hint at that," he murmured.

"I don't mean completely," she rushed to explain. He had the feeling that she'd already had this discussion once with somebody, and that she was desperate to make it go better the second time around. "I just need to step down into the background. I can write manifestos, treaties, do the supporting work—but I can't put myself in a place where I'm likely to become a target."

Bail folded his hands. He would have only this chance to accomplish what his earlier message to her should have achieved. "You know that your input is invaluable to us," he pointed out gently. "You're not meant to be a background supporter. Your talents are best put to use in a position of leadership. We need you to help with the organization work."

"And one day I'll be able to do that again," she said firmly.

"We need you _now_." He met her gaze just as sternly. "_Right_ now."

Padmé leaned forward, resting folded hands on the conference table, and spoke evenly. "I take it you're referring to that message you mentioned a few days ago."

"I am. You are the most gifted negotiator we have, and in a very short time, the resistance groups are going to need a first-class negotiator."

"And why might that be?"

Bail smiled. "Do you remember what was mentioned at the conference about Fresia?"

Padmé's eyes went wide.

…

"Reverting into sublight," a cool, accented voice announced over the intercom. Those listening straightened at their stations, already strapped in, fingers lingering tensely on controls. None of them displayed the apparent calm confidence of whoever was responsible for the intercom. But the voice was probably automated, and in any case the Empire demanded that its troops be vigilant, alert, ready for battle at the slightest provocation.

More to the point, their immediate commander demanded it. And there was not a man on the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer _Tyranny_ eager to be held up to the rest as an example of how not to conform to said commander's standards.

It could have been worse, as they all knew. The commander _could_ have been the Lord Darth Vader.

A few of the bolder crewmembers muttered under their breath from time to time that Captain Kale must, in fact, be a relative of the feared Sith Lord. The rest usually agreed silently and fervently. Had Kale but been gifted with Force powers, he might even have surpassed Vader in the realm of capricious cruelty.

Those who had seen the Dark Lord thought the similarities, though not numerous, were rather uncanny. Kale stalked his bridge in much the same manner as Vader was wont: hands clasped forebodingly behind his back, moving with a slow, dangerous swagger and examining each officer with a piercing stare. When he spoke, which was not often or at length, his voice was surprisingly deep—Kale was a small man, and his subordinates all towered over him by half a head or more.

He was, all told, small in more ways than one. Small of vision, small of mind. The captain was a superb commander of his single ship, but his superiors had rightly determined that the traits which made him so effective in the lower ranks would only inhibit him if he were to be placed in charge of anything more. There were plenty of other officers equally zealous for the New Order, who were not so narrow-minded. Kale knew perfectly well that he had been blacklisted by the promotion board. Bound as he was in loyalty to his superiors, however, he could only take his revenge by retaliating against his subordinates.

As most of the crew had witnessed Kale's revenge in action, they were all most eager to avoid becoming his next target. The _Tyranny_ emerged from hyperspace into the Bal'alen system with award-winning smoothness, shields up and all guns primed.

Captain Kale, his rather ugly face bearing the same look of mild disappointment it always did when his crew performed flawlessly, promptly unbuckled his crash webbing and resumed his prowling walk down the middle of the bridge. "Navigation, take us into stationary orbit," he barked.

The navigation officer, anticipating this order, executed it with exemplary promptitude. Kale scowled in his general direction; the navigation officer always met and exceeded the performance requirements, and was thus an untouchable irritant. True to form, his exacting touch put the _Tyranny_ into orbit almost effortlessly.

Kale cast a last scrutinizing glare around the bridge, and when even he could not find anything amiss, he stalked from the bridge to the conference room where his executive officers awaited him. "Gentlemen," he said tersely.

Stiff nods answered him.

"As you know, we have just entered the Bal'alen system," he announced, taking his seat and flipping open the dossier awaiting him. All the other officers followed suit, activating the embedded projectors. "Entirely a straightforward assignment. Standard Imperial Security Detail, covering Bal'alen and all bordering systems."

The officers nodded. The _Tyranny_ was usually assigned to security details. A few of them shifted in their chairs—they all knew what their duties were for such missions, and Kale was not one to repeat instructions they already knew. The meeting was as good as over.

Expressions of consternation flitted around the table when the captain continued, "There is, however, a classified addendum to this mission." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a data chip and inserted it into his dossier. A holoprojector activated in the middle of the table, causing a planetary system map to float serenely over their heads, with a line of letters beneath.

A wave of nearly tangible, half-disbelieving glee roared through the conference room. Delighted, ambitious grins appeared. Even Kale cracked something that might charitably have been termed a smile. "Although we are assigned to the Bal'alen district, the center of our attention lies outside our surveillance area. I trust, gentlemen, that you realize the significance of the Fre'ji system."

They laughed a bit uneasily, but still with enthusiasm.

Kale maneuvered his facial muscles into that grimacing smile again. "As I think is quite obvious, our primary security objective is the planet Fresia"—the map zeroed in on the fourth planet of the system—"more specifically Incom Corporation Development Center." The map zoomed in upon the surface of the planet until a compound of large warehouses came into view. "Our exact objective is the protection of Incom's current development project, which has been commissioned by the Emperor."

Kale flicked a few keys, the map blinked away, and a foreign shape appeared in its place—a small ship, distinguished by a needled nose, short crossed wings placed at the aft, and a quartet of ominous cannon placements. The captain waited another second for dramatic effect.

"Gentlemen," he said at last, "meet the T-65 X-wing."

The captain stood and began pacing around the table as the ship's image rotated in its center.

"Four Taim & Bak KX9 cannons, twin proton torpedo launching tubes, the new generation Carbanti receiver packages," Kale reeled off, twisting his gloves in his hands and occasionally glancing greedily at the starfighter. "The first prototypes are just coming out for testing, but according to the engineering estimates, these fighters are expected to have up to quadruple the versatility of our current TIE fighters, with an anticipated maximum velocity of 3,700 Gs."

He paused for another second before adding with relish, "Additionally, the T-65 incorporates a Class 1 hyperdrive."

The rotating ship seemed to bask in the adoration of the assembled officers. Perhaps it even glowed a little more brightly, if that was possible.

Kale smacked his gloves into his hand with a vengeance. "Gentlemen, this is the future of the Imperial Navy. This starfighter is by far superior to anything currently in space of its class. With this fighter, we will be able to _crush_ the rebel armed movements. Their Z-95 Headhunters might as well be so much meteor dust in the face of these craft."

The officers sat in silence, daydreams of glory and promotions pasting a haze over their eyes. Kale slowly returned to his seat. "This security mission is of critical importance," his dark voice rumbled over their heads. "There is no limit to the number of illicit organizations that would leap at the first chance to obtain those prototypes and schematics. If this starfighter were to fall into the hands of rebel sympathizers, we could eventually face a full-scale _revolt._" He slammed his hands palm-down on the table and swept a durasteel glare over them all. "I reiterate, this mission is of _critical_ importance."

His voice dropped to an icy whisper. "I trust, gentlemen, that you will remember that."

They all nodded, feeling their stomachs drop through the deck beneath their cold toes. Kale didn't need to elaborate on the fate that awaited the man who failed to remember.

…

Padmé could have taken the public transport from the hangar where Bail's shuttle dropped her off and been back at her yacht in three minutes. She elected to walk through the vast spaceport instead, wanting time to mull over the conversation that had transpired aboard the _Tantive IV_, but all too soon her feet were carrying her up the ramp. Reaching the top, she keyed the code, stepped through the hatch, and tripped over a pair of small outstretched feet.

By waving her arms wildly, she kept her balance, if not her dignity, and when she had recovered looked down at where the feet had been. Luke had already drawn them hastily up out of the way and was huddled back against the bulkhead. "Sorry," he mumbled, looking down at his model skyhopper.

"It's all right," she said gently. She crouched down until she was at his level. "Shouldn't you be in bed now?" The meeting with Bail had run very late. It was well past the time Obi-Wan and Luke usually went to bed.

Luke glanced up with a look of lingering distress and mumbled, "Yeah."

Her voice quickly softened. "Did you have another nightmare?"

To her surprised relief, he shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

She settled back on her heels. "Then why are you up?"

He mumbled unintelligibly.

"What did you say?" she pressed kindly.

"I's waitin' for you," he muttered, staring fixedly at his skyhopper. It was a few seconds before he glanced up and asked curiously, "How come you're cryin'?"

She hastily rubbed away the tears that had sprung up. The lighting was so dim, she hadn't thought he would notice, but her boy was more perceptive than she gave him credit for much of the time. "I'm not sad," she told him. "I'm very happy."

"How come?"

How could she possibly explain that to anyone in words? "I missed you very much when you were away," she said. "I'm so happy that you're here with me now."

Luke looked up suddenly from the skyhopper and fixed his blue eyes on her intently. "How come you didn't want to see me a'fore?"

She frowned, hands dropping. "What do you mean?"

"A'fore Uncle Owen an' Aunt Beru died. How come you didn't wanna see me then?"

It was a question she had vaguely expected to hear at some point. Nonetheless, she felt as though she had been punched in the gut, and she could hardly breathe for the suffocating guilt. "I did want to see you," she whispered. "I did, Luke, but…I was sick, for a long time…and…"

Her voice trailed away. There were no excuses she could make—not to him. Perhaps someday, when he was grown up, he would understand the reasons. But now? Now he was a boy who had spent all six years of his life wondering why his mother never even visited him.

Tears rose to her eyes again, but this time they sprang from sheer self-disgust, abhorrence of what Luke must think of her.

"I'm so sorry," she finally managed, when she had wrestled herself under control. "When you were born, I was so sad that I couldn't take care of you."

"Cause of Daddy?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yes. I missed your daddy so much. I was too sad to take care of you, so I—I had to ask somebody else to do it for me." Again her voice collapsed into a whisper. "Luke, I'm so sorry…"

"You don' have to be sorry," he mumbled. "It's not your fault you were sad."

"No," she got out, with an emphasis that surprised even her. "It is my fault, Luke. I let my sadness become more important than you, and that was a very big mistake."

Luke shifted uneasily. He could certainly sense how guilty she must feel, even though she doubted he understood why. She wiped her eyes determinedly, took a deep breath. "When I got better, it was too late for me to ask your aunt and uncle to give you back to me. That wouldn't have been fair. They loved you too."

Luke nodded. "But you coulda visited."

She smiled sadly. "I wanted to visit you. But it would have been very hard to come see you just for a little while. I would have missed you even more. And I didn't want to upset you." Of course, that was just one of the reasons she had stayed away from Tatooine. But if she tried to explain any of the others, it would just spark questions she didn't want to answer yet.

"Oh," Luke mumbled. He stared back down at the skyhopper. "Were you talking to your friend a long time?" he finally asked.

"Yes, I was talking to Senator Organa."

"I like him," Luke declared. "He's a nice man."

"He's a very good man."

"How come he's so worried?"

Padmé looked sharply at him. There certainly wasn't much that slipped by Luke.

Maybe it was time to tell him about the rebel movements?

No. Not yet.

"Senator Organa is unhappy about some things that the Empire does," she explained.

"Is that the same reason you're worried?" Luke demanded.

Padmé gritted her teeth under cover of shadow. This was rather difficult territory. "Yes, the Empire does some things that I don't like," she agreed. "But it's all right—you don't need to worry about grown-up things yet. You just worry about getting big and tall like your daddy, okay?"

Luke grinned brightly at her. "I'm gonna be a Jedi just like him. And I'm gonna have a ship and a lightsaber so I can fight all the bad guys with Ben."

She smiled back. "Sounds good to me. Do you think you can go to sleep now?"

He nodded. "I just hadda make sure you came back," he said seriously. "Ben went to sleep, so I hadda do it. Aunt Beru always waited if Uncle Owen didn't get home until late. You gotta make sure."

She smiled again and stood up. "Thank you very much. Let's both go to bed now, okay?"

She offered him her hand and walked down the corridor with him to his bunkroom. Once she had tucked him back in, she crept to her own cabin and tugged off her boots and jacket. She laid back on the narrow cot and stared at the ceiling for the duration of the night cycle, her mind too full for sleep.

She'd have to talk to Obi-Wan in the morning. She had a feeling he wasn't going to be very happy with the plans she and Bail had made…


	10. Disagreements

Author's Note: Not a very brisk chapter, but there is one new appearance I think several of you will like…hope you enjoy!

…

"Out of the question."

Padmé stiffened, glared. "I beg your pardon?" she hissed under her breath. "Do you realize what this could do for the rebel movements?"

"Do you realize what this could do to your _son_?" Obi-Wan returned. Beneath his veneer of Jedi serenity, Padmé could see sparks of something that was close to anger. "Venturing uninvited into an area under heavy Imperial surveillance is not a wise thing for anyone to do, but it is especially ill-advised for single parents."

Her eyes sparked angrily. "I hope you're not implying I don't take my responsibility to my son seriously."

Obi-Wan was not so easily deterred. "I am implying exactly that."

Her mouth fell open, as much in shock as in anger. She was so furious that she had to wait a good minute before she could respond with anything like calm. "That's absurd. My entire _life_ has been defined by my responsibilities towards others. If there is anything I understand, it is responsibility—"

"Civic responsibility," he cut in sharply. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but I do not think your sense of responsibility towards your family equals your sense of civic responsibility, Padmé."

She jerked as if he'd slapped her across the face. He kept going.

"You have spent your entire life devoted to the service of others, Padmé, for which I certainly commend you, but there are drawbacks to such devotion. You think in terms of what is best for the whole, not the individual. A parent cannot think that way."

"And what would you know about parenting?" she snapped, too furious to reel the comment in. She immediately felt guilty for it, but Obi-Wan took it in stride.

"Training a Padawan is not so very different from raising a child," he returned steadily. "If I had constantly gone around thinking how I could best serve all of the Padawans in the Temple, my own would have suffered greatly."

Padmé set her jaw—this time not in anger, but against the pain that welled with every mention of Anakin. "This is ridiculous," she finally said, when she could speak without her voice quavering. "Luke is the entire reason I'm working against the Empire. His future is at stake. This operation could be a deciding factor in weakening the power that threatens his life, and I am the best choice to spearhead it. I am doing this for _him_, not myself."

"I'm sure Luke will find that knowledge a great reassurance in the event of your death," Obi-Wan said evenly.

She leaned back in her chair with a cold glare. "So I'm supposed to let fear dictate my actions henceforth?"

"You are _supposed_ to use your good sense and make Luke's welfare your first priority," Obi-Wan countered. "If you go to Fresia, you are risking your life and his safety! Padmé, all it could take is one lucky hologram snapshot, and the Sith might know of both you and Luke."

"That is the case no matter where I go," she retorted. "And all it takes for them to win is for people like me to sit around doing nothing. This is no more dangerous than anything else I have done in the past six years. I am going to Fresia, and then I will step back."

Obi-Wan settled back in his own chair, looking at her with evident disappointment. "I will not condone that decision," he told her firmly.

She sighed in exasperation. "Obi-Wan, you don't have to agree. You don't have to come. This is my decision. I'm just asking you to take Luke for a couple of days. I'll take one of Bail's ships, and I think it would be best if you and Luke took this one to—"

"Padmé, I don't think you take my meaning," Obi-Wan cut in. "I _will not_ condone this. And if I decide not to condone something, I am not going to enable it either."

She stared at him in disbelief as he continued, "I will not be a convenient babysitter for you to shunt Luke off to whenever the greater good calls. If you insist on going to Fresia, you will do it without my assistance."

It took a moment to process that Obi-Wan Kenobi had actually refused to assist her for the first time in living memory. "Obi-Wan—I don't have anywhere else to send him," she tried to reason.

"Then you won't be sending him anywhere," the Jedi Master returned unsympathetically.

Padmé stared, anger starting to surge all over again. "That's coercion."

"If I have to engage in a bit of coercion for the sake of Luke's wellbeing, so be it," Obi-Wan said sharply.

She leaned back again in her chair, eyes closed, hands steepled and pressed against her mouth, thinking and calming herself. Finally she spoke again. "Do you respect my ability to assess situations?"

"Of course I do."

"And do you respect my authority as a mother to take whatever actions I think are in Luke's best interests?"

He nodded, defensively. It wasn't difficult to see where she was taking this, she knew, but subtlety wasn't really the point.

"Then you'll trust my judgment and support my decisions."

His counter surprised her. "And in your judgment, have you taken into account what your departure might do to your son at this point?"

"Of course—"

"I don't think so. Padmé, Luke is just beginning to come to terms with the changes his life has undergone. How do you think it will look to him when his mother leaves again after only a few days?"

She closed her eyes. The thought had certainly crossed her mind many times. "The timing is very unfortunate. I don't think either of us disputes that. But I will not be gone for more than a few days, and there is no way to put this opportunity on hold. I realize it will be very difficult for him. But I _am_ coming back, and when I do, it will reaffirm to him that he can trust me." She looked him intently in the eye. "Don't think I made a decision like this lightly, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan held her gaze for several long, silent seconds.

"Even if you won't do this for me, do it for Luke," she urged. "Obi-Wan, he's more at ease around you anyway. A short break from my company might even be good for him. And when I come back, I will find another leader for my resistance cell, and Luke and I will find somewhere quiet and safe. It's just this once."

He finally sighed and dropped his head. "I am officially on record as objecting to this," he reminded her.

"But you'll take Luke."

"I will. This one time."

She smiled. "Thank you, Obi-Wan."

_The Bal'alen system…_

Firmus Piett, Second Lieutenant, Junior Communications Officer of His Majesty's Starship _Tyranny_ for the past five months, had long since learned that intense job stress around the clock and every day of the week was all part and parcel of working under the forbidding glare of Captain Kale. He liked to think that he had adjusted rather well, especially considering this was his first tour of duty since his graduation from the Imperial Naval Academy. In fact, the Senior Communications Officer—Tbron, his name was—had commented a couple of times that Firmus' relative calm was a valued addition to his division. It was why he'd shifted Firmus out of the standard shipboard rotation, where all the rest of the junior officers were paying their dues, and put him on the bridge crew, where frequent interaction with the tyrannical captain had driven more than one com officer to the brink of breakdown.

It was a nerve-racking assignment, to say the least, but he'd kept himself going with the thought that such advanced work so early in his career was going to look very good to the promotion boards—with any luck he'd make First Lieutenant by the end of the year and they'd reassign him. The promise of an improved future in mind, he'd been able to manage working on the bridge…

…Until tonight, anyway.

He stared once again at the schematics display for the ship that had just come in system and answered his challenge. The code clearance had checked out.

Blue.

He swallowed, and began pressing buttons on his console. He did not envy the poor fellow who'd have to take _this_ message to Kale.

Especially not considering it was the middle of the captain's night cycle.

But, decisively, he pressed the button to summon one of the communications ensigns. "Inform the captain that Lord Vader has arrived," he said.

The ensign paled, and gave him a long, pleading look before trudging off in fearful resignation. Underling though he might be, even he had heard of the legendary hatred between their captain and the dreaded Sith Lord.

It was really no wonder they hated each other. They were too much alike for it to be otherwise. Firmus transmitted the standard boarding instructions to the incoming shuttle, tales of the clashes between the two Imperial commanders running through his mind. From what he'd heard, Vader was basically Kale—on a much bigger scale. He was even more cruel, even more capricious, even more demanding, even more fatal in his rage. In the six years since he'd appeared on the scene from the Force knew where, the man had bypassed even the most experienced of the Clone Wars veterans, despite the fact that he had no official rank whatsoever. Resentful sentiments ran with venom through the ranks of those slighted veterans, though it was grudgingly conceded that Vader was truly a brilliant commander. Rumor had it the Emperor might even grant him command of the entire Navy in the near future, such was his talent.

The idea of a super-Kale in command of the Navy was enough to make Firmus quake in his regulation-polished boots. Hopefully the rumor was just that. Kale had been a trying enough experience; the lieutenant fervently prayed that he would never have to deal with Vader. Thank the Force he was too junior for his presence to be required at the greeting party.

…

His efforts at bringing his crew to heel had not gone to waste; everything was perfectly in order according to all regulations by the time the _lambda_ shuttle bearing their guest settled down in the _Tyranny_'s vast hangar bay. Kale's spine stiffened automatically as the landing ramp set down with a hiss, as did those of the rest of the hastily assembled greeting party.

That there even was a complete greeting party at this time of the shipboard cycle, let alone a prompt one, was quite the achievement. For a few minutes—when the news broke that Major Tbron had been rushed to the med bay after a sudden affliction of the Devaronian flu—it had looked as though protocol might hit the fan. Although Kale did enjoy every opportunity he had to improve the discipline of his crew, this was not the time for anything to go awry.

Fortunately, the com officer on bridge duty had made it in time to fill his superior's position and put the party in order before Vader actually emerged. Normally, Kale despised the efficient, unflappable lieutenant, who was thus far an utter failure when it came to failure—but the man's composure was a commodity in this case.

Besides, he was too distracted by Vader's presence to care about anything as petty as a junior com officer.

With a dramatic explosion of steam and a spine-chilling hiss of his respirator, the Dark Lord emerged from his shuttle.

Kale and all the rest of the party promptly saluted. "Welcome to the _Tyranny_, my lord," the captain said briskly.

…

So. A full greeting party, despite the inconvenient hour of his arrival. Typical of Kale. But the captain's efforts to impress him were, as usual, unsuccessful. Vader swept a dispassionate gaze over the assemblage of officers. They were all of them quaking in their boots, with the given exception of Kale and the mildly surprising one of the communications officer. Vader eyed the anonymous officer for the briefest instant more before dismissing him from mind.

"Dismiss them, I have no use for your courtesies," he boomed, sweeping onward. The much shorter officer was forced into the awkward position of waving the members of the greeting party off while simultaneously twisting about to keep pace with his doubtless undesirable guest. Vader savored the man's flash of suppressed resentment. He had encountered Kale on several occasions over the past few years; toying with the man was always refreshing entertainment. His master might have said such games were beneath him. But it was nonetheless pleasurable, in much the same morbid way as placing a focusing lens over some irritating insect and watching it squirm and smoke.

Childish, yes, but—

…_a convenient distraction from your regrets…_

—Amusing.

"Your arrival is an unexpected honor," the pestering insect-man was now blabbering.

"You will shortly find it less so," he informed Kale acidly. "I am here to supervise the matter of the Incom Corporation project."

They entered a turbolift bound for the bridge. Vader noted vaguely that the com officer had come in behind them.

"The situation is well in hand, my lord," Kale said tightly. Again that delicious flash of resentment.

"I will be the judge of that, Captain," Vader rumbled.

Kale persisted, to his black delight. "Supervision is hardly necessary. I am sure your talents are more urgently needed elsewhere. It is a simple security operation. My team is more than equal to the task."

"It is not the skills of your officers that the Emperor finds questionable."

The captain's subconscious roiled furiously, yet so inculcated was the man into the naval hierarchy that he never consciously realized his own fury. Earnestly he continued attempting to prove himself to Vader, who listened with disdain. "I assure you, my lord, I am fully qualified…" Impotent little man. He would never be more than an insect-tyrant, incapable of seeing beyond the prow of his sole Star Destroyer. All primitive ambition and unthinking zeal. There should be no place for such small-minded men in the new order.

Unfortunately, Kale had served the Empire well these past six years, and given Vader no grounds for eliminating him.

The lift arrived at the bridge; the com officer emerged first, Vader looming on his heels. He sensed Kale begin to step out behind him.

He had no intention of suffering the captain's inferior company any longer. "You may retire, captain," he said, in a tone that left no room for argument. "I do not require your services. I am sure the demands of your duty have left you in need of your rest."

Again that searing repressed fury. But Kale nodded, exemplary, obedient to the point of ridiculous earnestness. "My lord."

The turbolift departed, and Kale with it. Vader turned and surveyed the bridge. There were a few less personnel on duty, but they worked with exemplary efficiency under the supervision of one of the Kale's executive officers, who saluted him stiffly and wisely kept his distance. Vader prowled the length of the bridge catwalk once or twice, taking in the view of Bal'alen from the panoramic viewport and observing the efforts of the officers. His gaze rested idly on the com officer. There was a certain quality about that young lieutenant which struck him as promising. The rest of the bridge crew performed well as a result of Kale's tactics of intimidation, but this one seemed to genuinely be a cut above average.

Well. Time and experience would tell. In the meantime, a mere lieutenant was hardly deserving of his attention. Besides that, he must focus on the matter of Fresia and the Incom project. Vader had reviewed the designs of the proposed T-65 starfighter personally throughout its development, at the insistence of the Emperor, among whose pet projects the T-65 was numbered. Palpatine would be most displeased should something go wrong at the last moment. So would Vader, for that matter—the new ships were most promising.

A threatening visit by a Sith Lord should be enough to keep Kale fully alert. He would remain a few days, ensure that the crew properly understood the import of its responsibility and the implications of failure, and then return to the skirmishes with the rebel factions near Ansion. Hopefully his brief departure from the fighting would not spell disaster for Imperial forces; but he trusted those men more than he did Kale. Their thinking was not so confined.

The executive officer slunk up and informed him that his quarters were ready at his convenience. Vader stalked off to meditate. The Force had been…unsettled as of recent. He should ensure that there were no threatening developments in store for the new order he had sacrificed so much to inaugurate.

…

Padmé was busy packing Luke's jumpsuits and other necessary items into a duffle bag. They didn't go very far towards filling it. She stared ruefully at her son's meager possessions, feeling guilty that she hadn't done much about it yet. Well—she would take care of that as soon as she got back from Fresia. Perhaps she'd even make a brief shopping trip on her way back; it might help placate her son's emotions.

Luke was sitting on his bunk in his pajamas, watching her somewhat forlornly. She cinched the duffle bag shut and sighed, glancing at him.

She didn't need to feel any more guilty than she already did.

"I'll be back soon, Luke," she told him, as much to assuage her own guilt as to reassure him. "You'll hardly even know I'm gone. Besides, you'll have fun with Obi-Wan."

"What if you don't come back?" he muttered unhappily.

She smiled at him, a big, soothing smile. "Of course I'm coming back. This is just something I need to do for work."

"Why can't I come?"

She shook her head gently. "Oh, Luke, you would only be bored," she told him. "It's just going to be a lot of talking."

"What if you get hurt?"

"I won't," she said firmly.

"But how do you know?"

"I can't let anything hurt me," she told him lightly. "I have to take care of you, sweetheart."

Luke was not so easily convinced. "But what if you die?"

"I'm not going to die, Luke."

"You don' know," he mumbled, staring down at his ship.

She brushed his hair fondly out of his eyes. "Luke, I love you very much, and I will not leave you alone."

"But what if you can't stop it? What would happen a' me?"

"_If_ something happens, then Obi-Wan will take care of you," she said. "But nothing is going to happen. I will come back in a few days."

"Promise?"

"I promise." She handed him the duffle bag. "Will you be okay for just a few days?"

"I guess," he mumbled.

She smiled at him again. "Come on. It's time for bed. You get to go on a new ship this time."

It had been decided, after much deliberation, that Obi-Wan and Luke would take the anonymous ship provided by Bail, while Padmé would take her own freighter to Fresia. The two ships were now docked together, far away from the main traffic of Obroa-Skai. Obi-Wan was already aboard, running some system checks. Padmé took Luke to the cabin he and Obi-Wan would share, got him settled in the bunk, said a last goodbye, and switched out the lights before going to the cockpit to talk to Obi-Wan.

"He's aboard?" the Jedi Master asked.

"Yes, he's going to sleep now." Luke had been getting much better about going to sleep over the past few days. The new experiences seemed to be helping him forget the old painful ones. She was glad he was young enough for that.

"Well, all my systems seem to be functioning properly," Obi-Wan said. He stood and they walked to the docking tube at a leisurely pace.

"Thank you for everything, Obi-Wan," she told him as they reached the junction.

"Be careful," he returned somberly.

"As careful as I can be," she promised.

He nodded, and they both stepped out on their respective sides of the tube with a final wave. The doors sealed their multiple layers, and Padmé disconnected her end of the tube. She stared at the sealed portal for a few seconds, missing her son already, but shook herself out of it quickly.

She would see him very soon. And she had important work to do.

She walked briskly to the cockpit of her ship, and watched the scanners for a few moments as Obi-Wan's ship pulled swiftly away towards the opposite end of the system from her departure point. He and Luke were headed to Desmen; she would meet them there when her business in Fresia was finished. Once she was satisfied that his craft was sufficiently clear, she plugged in the coordinates for her first jump.

The freighter launched itself smoothly into hyperspace, bound for the Fre'ji system.


	11. Acts of Resistance

Author's Note: Thank you to those of you who reviewed the last chapter…I haven't gotten around to answering you yet, but I will do so before I post another chapter. It would really be nice to hear from more of you, though…Please feel free to comment, positively, negatively, or somewhere in between.

…

It was the first shift of the new cycle; under normal circumstances, Firmus Piett would be back in his quarters, crashed like a rock and dreaming of some sunny beach on some vacationing planet, a thousand lightyears away from Captain Kale. But these were not normal circumstances. After having had a full ten hours to reflect on it, in fact, the lieutenant had decided that this was much more like hell.

Major Tbron had not merely come down with the Devaronian flu; he had been assaulted by the worst invasion of it the shipboard medics had ever seen. Everybody else in the barracks belonging to the communications division had been quarantined—except, of course, for Piett, who had not been in the barracks within the infection window and was therefore the only officer on the bridge roster still fit for duty. As if working two full shifts in a row, with the prospect of a third in view, was not nightmare enough, the captain and Lord Vader had both reappeared on the bridge ten minutes ago.

The battle between the two of them had already seen one casualty. Piett stared religiously at his display as an unfortunate ensign scrambled away from the bridge, hand clutched around his bruised windpipe, and somehow kept his fingers from shaking as they worked. He knew the stories as well as the next man, but there was a vast gap between hearing about it and watching Darth Vader actually strangle someone without laying a finger on them.

The ensign had been lucky to escape with his life, not to mention his rank, intact.

Firmus just prayed he would continue to escape the man's notice—

"Lieutenant, since your subordinates seem incapable of delivering a coherent report, perhaps you would care to demonstrate it for them?"

Piett felt his spine freeze as the cold, deep voice rumbled behind him. He stood from his chair quickly nonetheless and turned to face Vader with as much professionalism as he could muster. He hadn't known the ensign was from communications…hadn't dared look that closely. "Certainly, my lord," he said. "May I ask what you wish the report to cover?"

"A coherent summary of all current security strategies regarding the Incom project," Vader snapped out. "Be ready in five minutes."

Piett swallowed, and glanced at his captain some feet away. Kale was watching with sour interest, probably anticipating a spectacular failure. He had good reason—it was all but impossible for a junior officer to meet the demand the dark lord had just made.

Impossible, that was, unless one kept oneself up to date on _all_ information pertaining to one's division, and not just information directly related to one's individual tasks. Which Piett did.

"I can begin now if you wish, my lord," he said.

Kale's baleful stare was suddenly shot through with surprise, which almost immediately morphed into detestation. Vader, who had begun to turn away, slowly looked back at him. Piett swallowed again, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing.

There was dead silence for some seconds. Piett resisted the urge to tug fearfully at his collar, expecting to feel invisible, relentless fingers crushing his windpipe any second…

"Then begin," Vader finally said.

Somehow, he managed not to totter from sheer relief and plunged ahead into his report. Once started, it was easy to lose his fear in the familiar process. "Of course, my lord, the most significant of our security measures is the _Tyranny_, which according to our latest intelligence reports should be more than sufficient to repel any attacks by Rebel forces. For clandestine purposes, it is current protocol that the ship rotate around its assigned sector in such a manner as to remain within one hyperspace jump of Fresia. In the Fre'ji system itself we have deployed a stormtrooper division around the Incom facility and placed a fighter squadron on alert. There are also several agents undercover for observation purposes, and planetary security has been ordered to maximum strength. Should a situation arise that our local precautions are not sufficient to control, the _Tyranny_ will be no more than two hours' time from Fresia. All standard security detail precautions apply as well."

He cleared his throat ever so slightly before continuing. "Of course, my lord, there are several pages of detailed protocols and directives, but I believe that summarizes all major security aspects regarding Fresia."

Silence again reigned for some several seconds. Piett hoped Kale's death glare was proof that his report had been acceptable…

"Well done, Lieutenant," Vader rumbled.

Piett blinked. Had the dark lord just…_complimented_ him?

Surely not!

"Th-thank you, my—"

"If only I could say the same for you, Captain," Vader continued ruthlessly, turning his opaque stare on Kale.

Piett backed silently down into his console seat. Between Kale and Vader was, in anyone's estimation, a most unwise position to occupy.

"Perhaps the import of the Fresia security assignment is unclear to you, Captain," the dark lord hissed.

"I assure you, my lord, that is not the case," Kale objected quickly.

"Then why is it that the _Tyranny_ is not in Fre'ji space as we speak?"

"I felt that would draw undesirable attention to the system. According to our orders, my lord, this security assignment is to be kept secret."

"The Empire is not interested in maintaining secrecy," Vader remarked acidly. "The Empire is interested in protecting the Incom project."

"I maintain that secrecy is the best method by which we _can_ protect the Incom project," Kale returned. "The _Tyranny_ is within close reach if needed."

"A rebel raid could seize the prototypes and plans in less than half an hour," Vader retorted. "And yet you find it acceptable to keep your ship within two hours of the system?"

"My lord, that is why I have stationed several detachments—"

"A few stormtroopers and fighters are scarcely sufficient to deter a rebel strike force."

Kale seemed to get some more backbone at that accusation. "The strength of the various rebel movements is highly overestimated, my lord," he returned firmly. "They are few in number, lacking in military resources and information, highly fragmented, and possess no military experience worth mentioning. It is an insult to Imperial prowess to regard them as a significant threat."

"You are as ignorant as you are inept," Vader retorted icily. "Reroute this ship to the Fre'ji system."

"My lord, I don't think—"

"Are you questioning my orders, captain?" Vader's voice had dropped to a soft, poisonous whisper.

"No, my lord," Kale said quickly. "Absolutely not."

"Excellent."

Piett could feel every footfall echoing in his chair as Vader stalked from the bridge. There was dead silence, in which he felt sure he could taste on the air the sheer delight of the crew at seeing their dreaded captain knocked from his pedestal. Then Kale stalked slowly to his command chair.

"Lieutenant Piett," he said softly.

Piett stood and turned—and nearly flinched at the look of raw hatred and fury on his commander's face. "Yes, sir?"

"Relay the course change order to Navigation. Tell them to take us to the Fre'ji system, immediately."

"Yes, sir."

…

It was really dark in his cabin. Luke didn't really like the dark. He missed the starfighter night light in his old room. Plus he missed his stuffed bantha. He was a big boy, six whole years old, and he wasn't supposed to like stuffed animals anymore, but his bantha had been a real good pillow, even better than real pillows, and it always made him sleep the best.

Well, he told himself stubbornly, he didn't have his night light, and he didn't have his bantha, so he was just going to have to put up with it being dark. He tried to make up for the missing bantha by snuggling up tight under his blankets. He did like his new blankets better than the ones in his old room. They were nice and heavy and warm. And he did like his new pillows, even if they weren't as good as the bantha, because they were real big and he could snuggle in between them and pull the blankets up over his head and it made a sort of tent.

He wished he had his model skyhopper. But he'd forgotten and left it on the other ship.

Where was Mommy going? She hadn't said. Luke hoped it wasn't anyplace dangerous. Obi-Wan hadn't been very happy that she was going there, wherever "there" was. Obi-Wan was going to someplace that began with a D. He wished they had all gone to the D-place. Then he wouldn't have to be so worried and he wouldn't have forgotten his model ship and he could have played games with Mommy. And he wouldn't have been so worried about having nightmares.

Mommy thought he'd gone to sleep, but he hadn't yet. He was too nervous about nightmares. But he couldn't climb in bed with Obi-Wan anymore. After all, he was a big boy. Big boys weren't scaredy-banthas. He bet his daddy wouldn't have been scared of the dark or nightmares. So he wasn't going to be either, not anymore.

Determinedly, Luke closed his eyes and thought about his model ship and the big lake on Thesme until he fell asleep.

…

Obi-Wan had spent most of the jump to Desmen meditating. He could not yet rid himself of a premonition of looming danger. Whom it concerned, his meditation had not revealed to him. He could only hope it didn't involve Padmé. Or himself and Luke. No, that would not be particularly desirable either…

He stretched, resigning himself to the fact that he could neither predict nor dictate the future, and glanced at the countdown chrono. It was another five minutes before the ship came out of hyperspace after its eleven-hour jump. The Jedi Master stood. He should tell Luke; the boy loved few things more than watching reversions from hyperspace.

Obi-Wan padded his way through the ship until he reached Luke's door. Manually opening it just enough to peer in, he saw that Luke was still curled up in a motionless lump, blankets pulled over both his head and the pillows he seemed to have piled up around himself. How very…well, Anakin.

Had the boy really slept this whole time, untroubled by nightmares?

Changing his mind, Obi-Wan shut the door again and returned to the cockpit. He should let Luke sleep as long as he was inclined; the boy certainly needed that more than another view of hyperspace reversion, although he was sure Luke would disagree with him emphatically when he finally awoke.

It was good to see that the child was recovering. He only hoped this little expedition of Padmé's didn't impede that.

…

Padmé watched the chrono wearily. It was another five solitary hours before her ship would arrive in Fresia. She'd already slept for nearly thirteen straight hours; something she'd rarely ever done in her life. Now all she had to do for the next five was ponder how wise a decision she'd made in leaving Luke behind. She didn't feel like wallowing in guilt the whole way there…

The droids!

Padmé gave a half-smile and climbed out of the pilot's seat, heading for the small hold of her yacht. How could she have forgotten them? She'd not activated them since the trip to Tatooine. Then, she'd been far too agitated for them to be of any help—but she'd spent countless hours over the last six years in their company. They might not be quite equal to human companionship, but they weren't half bad.

With two pressed buttons, their photoreceptors lit up brightly. "Hello, you two," she said.

"Why, Mistress Padmé! I do believe I've been shut down for quite some time."

"Yes, I'm sorry about that, Threepio. It's been a busy couple of weeks."

"Oh!" cried Threepio in distress. "I hope you didn't encounter any dangers on Tatooine, Mistress Padmé."

The short astromech droid beside him rolled forward with an insolent chirp and bumped Padmé affectionately. She smiled and patted his dome.

"Well," Threepio huffed, "_I_ think it's quite logical to have an appropriate amount of apprehension, _especially_ considering Tatooine."

Artoo's dome swiveled with a rather cocky air, accompanied with a string of rude whistles.

"_Well_! You needn't be cheeky about it, you overgrown trash can!"

Padmé grinned. She wasn't sure how she would have gotten through the last six years without these two to lighten her mood.

"Are we on Tatooine now, Mistress Padmé?" Threepio inquired at length.

She shook her head. "No, Threepio. I'm on a covert mission to Fresia. It's for the rebellion."

Artoo's dome swiveled some more, and he gave another series of more serious chirps.

Threepio jerked his head. "Artoo would like to know who is accompanying you on this mission."

She frowned. "Nobody. As I said, it's covert."

Artoo squealed and whistled. Padmé stiffened, detecting a note of alarm. "What is it?"

Threepio gasped. "Mistress Padmé! Artoo has detected an intruder on his scanners!"

…

Obi-Wan glanced toward the cockpit door. He was beginning to be a bit concerned. They had been in the Desmen system for about two hours now; Obi-Wan had done some security checks and put their ship down in the middle of a huge, uninhabited forest, turning the ship's power down to the minimum so as not to attract unwanted attention. That was thirteen hours since they'd hypered out of Obroa-Skai—and still he detected no stirring in young Luke's Force presence. The boy did not register at all.

Call him paranoid, but Obi-Wan thought it was extremely strange for any six-year-old, let alone one troubled by nightmares, to sleep so deeply for thirteen hours straight.

It was certainly more than enough sleep. Obi-Wan stood and walked back to Luke's door, opening it quietly by hand. His young charge was right where he had left him, curled up on his bed beneath the blanket and the pillows.

In fact, nothing appeared to have budged at all.

Oh, no…

…

The adrenaline was pounding through her veins. Blaster held warily in guard position, set on stun, Padmé no longer felt at all bored as she eased around the corridor, following Artoo as he led her towards the stowaway. The astromech finally stopped outside Obi-Wan's cabin and let out a low, confirmatory whistle. Padmé nodded firmly and gestured for him to back out of the way.

They'd left Threepio bemoaning his fate in the cockpit. Should something happen, Artoo would alert him and he would send an alert message to Bail Organa.

Who could possibly have gotten aboard her ship?

Padmé wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Bracing herself, taking a deep breath, she slapped the door control and dashed into the entrance, blaster aimed at the lump on the bunk, and shouted, "Don't move!"

The lump lurched upward, and Padmé gasped, finger moving on the trigger almost without thought.

…

Obi-Wan rushed forward, making short work of the distance between door and bed, and tore the blankets back from the lump on the bed. Then he sank down on the bed wearily.

Blasted Skywalkers.

…

"Mommy!" the lump yelled.

Padmé stopped her finger on the trigger just barely in time. "_Luke_?"

The shadowed, blanket-swathed figure nodded frantically. Shakily Padmé reholstered her blaster and fumbled for the light switch. The glow panels flooded on, illuminating Luke's rather frightened face.

Padmé sagged against the wall, hand clamped to her chest, utterly speechless.

"I'm sorry, Mommy," Luke whimpered, "I'm sorry…"

"What are you _doing_ here?" she finally got out in a very ragged voice.

Luke mumbled something, shrinking down shame-faced into his blankets.

Numbly she walked over to the bed and sank down next to him. "What?"

"I want to come with you! I don't care if it's boring, Mommy, I want to come with you!"

"Oh, Luke…" She groaned and rubbed her head. "I told you to go with Obi-Wan for a good reason."

Luke stared at his covers. "You don't want me to come?" he mumbled.

She sighed. "Honey, it's not like that. This just isn't a very good place to take children. That was why I wanted you to go with Obi-Wan."

"So it's dangerous?"

Padmé groaned against and dropped her head into her hands altogether. She should have seen this coming. She should have known Luke would have Anakin's insatiable taste for adventure, for not following the expectations. Maybe this was the real reason nobody was supposed to marry Jedi…the children would be completely uncontrollable.

What the nine _hells_ did she do now?


	12. A Meter is as Good as a Lightyear

A/N: cringes Yes, I know, it's been a sinfully long time since I've updated this story… heck, I'll be lucky if there's anybody out there who still remembers it! Unfortunately, I've had a really busy spring semester—18 credit hours, yuck—and there just hasn't been too much inspiration on this story in quite some time. But—spring break works wonders! This isn't a very long chapter, I guess, but hopefully it will tide you all over until I can type up some more. Again, my apologies for being so terribly slow to continue this story. Let me know what you think (even if you think I'm a jerk for dragging my feet for months…).

* * *

All thirteen hours of sleep had deserted her. Padmé slumped back in the seat of the pilot's chair and drew a weary hand across her furrowed forehead. She'd tried, but of course it was no use—this yacht didn't have any impressive secret communication suites like those at Silya's house, so she could not connect with Obi-Wan or Bail's secret line. And she was now too far from Alderaan to have a prayer of connecting with the planet through normal channels, though she could hardly believe that she had dared to try something so dangerous. Neither did she have time to turn back and prevail upon Bail to send somebody in her stead to Fresia—the window of time that their contacts had given was steadily slipping away.

If she didn't go, the prototype fighters were lost to the Rebellion, and possibly the war too.

She set her mouth grimly. If they lost the war, she lost all hope for herself…and her children.

She had no choice. She _had_ to press on to Fresia, Luke or no Luke. She glanced at him, where he curled shamefaced in the co-pilot's chair.

_No Luke…_

Her stomach twisted sickeningly at the thought of placing her son in danger. Stars, what had she _done_?

_Nothing!_ a furious voice shouted in her head. _You didn't do anything! _She rubbed her temples, suppressed a groan. She'd not have been forced into such a position if Luke had only stayed where she'd put him…if Obi-Wan had…had…oh, she didn't know what he should have done, but he was supposed to know more about this than her, wasn't he? A fine place his Jedi prescience had gotten them into!

Sternly she batted away the thoughts. What had happened, had happened, and there was no point whining about it. She was wasting time that could be spent more profitably on other things.

Such as disciplining her son.

She turned her tired gaze onto him, completely at a loss as to the appropriate parental response to a stowaway six-year-old. Force knew _she'd _never given her parents any reason to demonstrate it! Should she send him to his cabin and tell him to stay there?

_Oh, yes_, remarked the voice rather snidely, _that worked _so _well before!_

Luke hunched a little tighter, and didn't dare look up at her. With a rush of frustration Padmé suppressed the irritated voice in her. Though he might not have heard her specific thoughts, he could clearly sense the direction of her mood at present.

Suddenly her anger and fear softened. Obviously, this was not the result Luke had hoped for when he'd snuck back aboard the yacht. Gently she reached out and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, Luke," she sighed.

Anakin would have been so much better with him, she thought despairingly. He had always been so good with children. A ghostly image of the garden in her parents' home misted into being before her eyes—Anakin, playing with Ryoo and Pooja. Anakin would have understood Luke so much better than she did.

Luke finally dared glance up. "Don' be sad," he muttered. "I don' wanna make you sad."

She pulled her hand back, regarding him. Anakin…would have done exactly what Luke had just done. So…should she do what Obi-Wan would do?

It was the best plan of action she'd come up with so far. So she went with it.

"Why didn't you do what I asked, then?"

He quickly ducked back down. "I wanna come with _you_," he mumbled. "Ben says you're 'posed to take care of me now."

"When I sent you with Obi-Wan, I _was_ taking care of you," she said a bit more severely. "Fresia isn't a very good place for you to be."

"Then how come it's okay for _you_ to go?" Luke muttered, rather sullenly.

"Because I'm an adult," she said sternly. "When I tell you to do things like that, Luke, it's because I'm trying to keep you as safe as I can."

Fright suddenly bloomed in his expression. "Am I gonna die?" he asked anxiously.

Her effort to imitate Obi-Wan promptly collapsed; she gave an inward sigh of defeat. Nothing could withstand those big blue eyes, she was sure of it. "No, sweetheart," she quickly assured him. "I'll take care of you."

* * *

Luke was very subdued for the remainder of the jump to Fre'ji. He clearly harbored no illusions about how much trouble he was in, however little his mother might be able to do about it now. She had informed him that, when they returned from Fre'ji, he could expect to be disciplined properly then, and (once she explained just what the word "discipline" meant) the effect of that threat on him had been quite impressive, if she did say so herself.

And she certainly intended to follow through on the threat. Even if she _was_ going to have to consult with Obi-Wan on what, exactly, proper discipline in such a case was.

By way of proving that intention to him, she had sent him firmly to his room after they had both eaten something. Luke hadn't protested, not even when she added that he was not to come out to watch the reversion from hyperspace.

It was, she reflected a bit grimly, as well that she'd had the excuse to confine him to his room for that part of the journey. She did not really want Luke to witness the scene that was probably going to ensue once system security sensors got a whiff of her. Which, she reflected, was doubtless going to happen right…about…_now_.

The wild whirl of hyperspace straightened, stiffened, and then the streaks of light shrank back into pinpricks as her normal-space sensor arrays came online. Padmé spared a reflexive glance for her scanner displays—

Her spine went stiff as a large triangular shape appeared in the display, a shape that reminded her of nothing so much as the floating snout of a pseudo-gator.

A most un-diplomatic curse flashed through her mind for an instant. Bail's information had said there were no Star Destroyers in Fre'ji. Either he had been wrong, or matters had evolved since then.

This had just gotten much, much more interesting.

The com crackled to life. Padmé quickly rehearsed her story as the Imperial officer on the other end began speaking.

* * *

"Unidentified ship, this is His Majesty's Star Destroyer _Tyranny._ Please transmit your identification and reason for system entry," Second Lieutenant Firmus Piett said into his com receiver, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. That blasted biosensor warning flashing on the side of his console display was playing havoc with his bloodshot eyes. The biosensors had been complaining about his alertness stats for hours now, and the captain's manual override was the only reason Piett hadn't already been locked out of his console. The Devaronian flu epidemic was still going strong in the communications barracks—although Major Tbron had begun to mend, Piett remained the only communications officer fit for duty.

In other circumstances, Kale would have implemented the standard emergency schedule, switching to half-shifts and alternating Piett with senior officers who had some communications experience. Unfortunately, the _Tyranny_ was on Grade-A system security detail, which meant that all the senior officers who might have otherwise have shared communications duty were swamped with maintaining their own sectors on high alert. Besides, Grade-A stipulations mandated the constant presence of a fully trained com officer on the bridge at all times.

Because, after all, you never knew when a random ship might happen to pop out of hyperspace. Like this one.

"This is the privately owned yacht _Sand Angel_," a static-distorted voice replied. Piett thought it might be female, but he couldn't be sure. His senses weren't working so well after thirty hours without sleep, and those stim tabs didn't do much for his hearing. "We are registered to this system. We are bound for the planet."

Eh. Another rich Incom executive coming back home and getting tripped up by the increased security. Piett had handled more than one of these arrivals since the _Tyranny_ had arrived in Fre'ji. He glanced over at the ensign at the console beside him, who was in charge of validating the yacht's ID. The ensign shrugged, yawning. "Reception's crap, sir," he muttered. "Must be some bad emission interference."

Piett switched his pickup to mute and glowered at the ensign. "Ensign, I don't give a womp rat's backside what the reception is like," he barked. "Does the ID check out or not?"

The ensign wisely did not make any further wise cracks and ran the analysis. He repressed a glower when the results came up. Seventy-five percent validation match—that was on par with normal acceptance standards, but it was five points below the requirements for Grade-A security standards…but it was so close, and he _really_ didn't want to go to all the bother of deploying the confirmation probes. His shift was almost finished, and if he had to deploy the probes and then recover them, he'd run a whole hour over—_and_ he'd have to write up the report and fill out the forms to justify having deployed the damned things. And with the numbers this close, Supply would be on his case for putting the expensive wear and tear on his equipment—especially when it was probably just a screwed-up engine exhaust valve or something equally stupid.

"Yes, sir, it checks," he announced smartly.

* * *

Was this what it was like to be a Jedi? Padmé could _feel_ the silence, physically _feel_ it—it seemed to crawl up into her body through the tips of her fingers, slide in through her straining ears. Her mind's eye envisioned the black threat of it seeping out through the cockpit hatch, crawling towards Luke's cabin.

If every brush with danger had made Anakin feel something like this, perhaps it wasn't quite so surprising it had finally gotten to him. The thought that this ship—and _Luke_—could be blown out of space if the officer on the Destroyer had a nasty case of indigestion…the idea of her little boy being thrown into a cold detention cell, at the mercy of abusive troopers…

_I shouldn't have come…I should have turned around as soon as I found him, I shouldn't have come…_

The com crackled. "_Sand Angel_, you are confirmed for system entry. Be advised that the system is under high security. Stand by for transmission of authorized planetary approach vector. Any deviation from the approved vector will result in use of force."

It was all she could do to keep her voice from shaking with relief as she answered, "Understood, _Tyranny_," she answered. A chime blinked on her command console. "Approach vector received. Commencing course alteration."

"Course alteration confirmed, _Sand Angel_," the thoroughly bored voice on the other end said. "Welcome to Fre'ji." The com went silent.

Padmé signed off, plugged the directions into the navicomp, switched the controls to autopilot, and slumped back in her seat with her head in her hands.

A few minutes later, a small, very hesitant voice situated somewhere behind her whispered, "Mommy?"

She whirled the chair around, fully intending to scold him soundly for coming out of his room after she'd told him to stay put and how _dare_ he disobey her again—

Her sharp anger, she knew, was more than a little due to the nerve-racking crucible she had just endured, but it melted in an instant at the frightened look on his small face. The after-echoes of her horrible fear for him stabbed back through her tenfold, and without a second thought, she vaulted out of her chair and swept him up in a tight hug. His six-year-old frame was no weight at all. Luke didn't object to the sudden closeness—quite the contrary, he burrowed his face into her shoulder and wrapped his short legs monkey-like around her.

After a few seconds she settled back down into the pilot's chair and swiveled it so that both of them could see Fresia swelling in the viewport. Predictably, she felt Luke turn his head so as to take the sight in. It seemed no amount of trauma could detract from his fascination with space. She shifted him into her lap and wrapped both arms around him, settling her chin on his head with a soft sigh. "Are you all right?" she asked him.

"You were really scared," Luke muttered.

She leaned back a little and ran her hand through his hair. "I thought something might be wrong for a second or two," she told him lightly. "But everything was all right. Did I scare you?"

"Nuh-uh," Luke said stubbornly, shaking his head for extra emphasis. "Jus' hadda make sure _you _were okay." Padmé smiled wryly as Luke—apparently realizing his current position perched in his mother's lap might be compromising his manly reputation—squirmed away and crawled up into the co-pilot's seat. He eyed the controls wistfully, and gave her a hopeful glance, but she shook her head sternly. All the adorable blue puppy-eyes in the galaxy weren't going to convince her to let a six-year-old copilot a ship.

* * *

Vader swept out of the turbolift into _Tyranny_'s main hanger with a swirl of robes and a solid sense of satisfaction. His time aboard Kale's command had been brief, but quite productive, if the mood of the cluster of officers ahead of him was any indication. He reached out with a focused tendril of dark power and sampled with relish their anxiety, their dread of failure, and their dread of _him_. Most satisfactory. Between the increased motivation he had…_inspired_ in them, and Kale's own maniacal need to prove his competence to his superiors, he felt sure he need have no fear of complacency here.

It was therefore time he returned to the main body of the Fleet. However much he'd enjoyed watching Kale squirm. Well. All good things must come to an end.

"Your shuttle is prepared, my lord," the aforementioned despised captain informed him as he scrambled along obsequiously at Vader's side.

"It is well for your sake that that is the case," Vader boomed, anything but impressed. As if the proper performance of duty was something to be applauded. They reached the assembled farewell party waiting by the foot of the shuttle's landing ramp. Due to the epidemic of Devaronian flu, the party was missing a communications officer, and Kale's chagrin over the fact was nothing short of delightful. In fact, Vader had been savoring the captain's dismay over his decimated communications duty roster for the entirety of his stay on _Tyranny_. A pity he had to leave it. It created an ideal climate for Sith meditation.

"It was an honor to have you on board, my lord," the exec spoke up nervously, with a respectful nod of the head. Vader returned it neutrally. His distaste for Kale did not extend to the rest of the crew, which—according to the naval performance evaluations and his own observations—performed most admirably. A stray thought alighted on the beleaguered junior com officer, who had been on duty constantly since Vader's arrival. Piett's performance had been excellent, despite adverse circumstances. He would order one of his personal assistants to make a note of the name.

Without another glance or word for Kale, Vader stalked up the ramp of his shuttle. The ramp sealed behind him promptly as Kale keyed his wrist com on with a sour expression. "Communications, Lord Vader's shuttle departing," he snapped.

On the bridge, Lieutenant Piett cut his bloodshot gaze to the ceiling and gave a soft, infinitely grateful sigh.

* * *

They were at their closest point of approach to the Star Destroyer, and Padmé had a very cautious eye on the nav readouts while Luke, standing up in his chair, stared raptly out the viewport, chattering excitedly about the enormous ship. "Mommy, _lookit_, lookit all the—"

"Luke, I need you to sit down," she coaxed. "You're going to fall."

"I'm not gonna fall, Mommy," he said with absentminded confidence.

She rubbed her forehead with one hand. The thing was, he probably was right. Anakin's sense of balance had been nothing short of superhuman. Jedi. "It would make me feel better if you would sit down," she tried, without much hope that he would see reason the second time around.

Luke barely even heard her, so caught up was he in his exhilaration over the ship. "Wow, _lookit_ the engines, they're so _huge_—"

The crackling of the com speaker distracted her from her parenting dilemma. "_Sand Angel_, stand by for tractor beam acquisition," the voice on the other end ordered.

Padmé's stomach plummeted out of place. Her head snapped around, made fast with fear. "Luke, sit down!"

Had she been less frightened, she might have been surprised when he dropped immediately into his seat and scrabbled for the crash webbing. Shakily Padmé keyed her end of the com on. "Affirmative, _Tyranny_," she heard her voice say with absurd steadiness. "Is there a problem?"

"_Sand Angel_, please cease all com traffic," the Imperial ordered without answering. "Deactivate engines and sensors."

If she didn't comply, she'd be shot out of space here and now. She had no choice. "Affirmative, _Tyranny_," she said, and began killing her systems.

"Mommy, what's wrong?" Luke asked shakily. She could see the fear building in his eyes—but what could she say to calm him down when she was so frightened herself?

* * *

His shuttle had only been underway for five minutes when Vader felt a bizarre ripple in the Force. Curious, he reached towards the source of it—it was so…strangely familiar… There was fear, he could sense fear—but the signature of it was faint, undeveloped, too _small_ for it to be an adult, and so it could not be anyone aboard the Star Destroyer.

He strode briskly into the cockpit, ignoring the fearful expression on his pilot's face, and surveyed the scanner readouts. There was a small yacht bearing about 3-2-12 to their position. "Where is that yacht going?" he demanded of the pilot.

The man jumped and keyed on his com. "Communications, request ID and destination of unidentified ship?"

There was a brief pause before Piett answered from _Tyranny_. "Privately owned vessel _Sand Angel_, locally registered, bound planetside," the lieutenant answered in a crisp voice that betrayed none of the exhaustion the young man undoubtedly felt. Vader's estimation of him would have risen another notch had his attention not been focused on that strange flicker in the Force. "Sensor One reports ID confirmation."

Vader listened to the lieutenant's report distantly, his mind trying to follow that elusive beacon of fear and discern something more about its origin. It _could_ be a Force-sensitive child, but the sensation was so faint, so undefined, that it could be merely the result of intense fear from a non-Force-sensitive.

If it would just get a little stronger…

* * *

With a wrenching effort, Padmé forced her fear for Luke deep into the recesses of her mind and focused on calming her son. "Nothing's wrong, Luke," she said firmly. "They've just pulled us aside for a moment. There might be another ship leaving. It just took me by surprise for a moment, that's all. There's nothing wrong."

She smiled, not too brightly, because if she overdid it, Luke would know something was wrong. And for his sake, there must _not_ be anything wrong. She could not let him know what she was thinking all the time. She couldn't let him deal with both their burdens. Besides, it was entirely possible that nothing _was_ wrong.

"Oh," Luke said, relaxing all of a sudden and settling back into his seat. "Okay."

She felt a reserved tingle of triumph as he added optimistically, "I can see the ship real good from here."

* * *

For a moment Vader began to consider ordering _Tyranny_ to tractor to civilian ship aboard for inspection—but the odd little sensation in the Force wavered treacherously and then died out altogether.

He thought about it for another moment, and then stalked out of the cabin. "Proceed, Lieutenant," he ordered the pilot over his shoulder. His knowledge of the vagaries of the Force was far from comprehensive, and so trifling a phenomenon was not worth throwing an entire Fleet schedule out of synch. It certainly was no threat to the monolithic New Order he'd sacrificed so much to institute—an Order that required his presence to function smoothly.

They vanished into hyperspace a few minutes later.

* * *

Padmé was beginning to feel the strain of containing her raging emotions and maintaining an unconcerned pose. The knowledge that she was succeeding could only sustain her so far, after all—

"_Sand Angel_, you may resume your course heading," the indifferent Imperial voice suddenly announced into the backbreaking silence. "Be reminded that any deviations from the approved approach vector will result in use of force. Normal communications may be resumed."

She could not stop her hand from shaking a little bit with relief as she pressed the com key. "Affirmative, _Tyranny_," she breathed out.

"We're gonna go now?" Luke asked. She nodded. His expression fell. "Aw, _man_," he said plaintively. "I wanted to look at the ship more."


	13. Take Your Son To Work Day

A/N: I apologize profusely, for it has been sinfully long since I last updated this story. It just took me so long before I was happy with the way this chapter was going or had a good idea of where the story is headed. Plus, I have dislocated BOTH my arms since the last update (reducing me to typing one-handed for weeks at a time), wrapped up a heavy spring semester at college, and moved across the continent twice. I realize this is probably no good excuse for leaving you all hanging for MONTHS, but I have attempted to make it up to you with a nice long chapter. So if anybody is still reading this story, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Once Obi-Wan had his ship hurtling through hyperspace in the direction of Fresia, there was nothing left for him to do but contemplate how in the blasted galaxy Luke had managed to sneak in between ships without either the Jedi or his mother noticing.

Finding the prospect of musing over his latest shortcoming for hours to be less than appealing, the Jedi Master decided to eat something instead. He walked out of the cockpit, rubbing bleary eyes in a vain effort to prevent the onset of a headache, and let his feet take him to the galley. His mind did not attempt to consider options, it simply watched with detached interest as he wandered over to the pantry and pulled out Luke's box of Bantha Bites. Anakin had never failed to have a supply of them stashed away somewhere, despite the fact that Obi-Wan had never been able to find a store on Coruscant where they were sold.

After he'd realized that the stuff was a local food group on Tatooine, it had simply been…natural to have it available. Something to eat without having to contemplate it. Absently he tore open the sealed bag inside the primitive cardboard box and dug his hand down into the fresh cereal, his thoughts wandering away across the lightyears…

To his surprise, his hand sank without resistance straight to the bottom of the container, finding only a shallow layer of cereal left in what should have been a completely new bag. Frowning, he extracted his hand and held the box up the light. He was quite sure that plastic had been factory-sealed.

So why was there only a third of the cereal in it that there should have been? Hesitantly he tugged the bag out of the box. It came out completely empty, and he soon saw that somebody had ripped open the bottom of the bag. The cereal rattled in the bottom of the hollow cardboard, and then began splattering on the deck. Obi-Wan flipped it quickly and saw a moderate puncture in the base of the box, at about the same relative spot as the tear in the bag. He cupped his hand around the gash and threw the lot into the mini-compactor. Probably it had just been jostled or something at the factory, gotten perforated by a random piece of piping.

Something impossible to prevent, but which nonetheless threw affairs into disarray.

He was definitely going to have to take some meds for this headache. And a nap. A nap sounded good.

* * *

L'Hanna Ve-Kiis was not having a good day. In fact, L'Hanna had had several suboptimal days in a row, and the prospect of several more to come hung over the research scientist's extraordinarily capable mind like so many rain clouds. This state of affairs was not one calculated to set the mathematic intellect at its ease. After all, she reflected sourly, one could only define as many variables as one had compatible equations. But she had just one equation, and the variables were infinite.

She did not care to contemplate what the chances were of their guessing all the correct values.

Unfortunately for her concerns, Vetros was not nearly so hesitant or objective. In fact, he'd gotten himself so krething _impassioned_ about this whole stupid romanticized plan to aid and abet the Rebels, that she'd taken to wondering why in the nine Corellian hells he'd ever pursued so detached and sterile a career as military research and development.

"You know," a low, conversational voice said behind her, "it's an established fact that worry detracts from the quality of one's work."

She rubbed her forehead irritably, her free hand still manipulating a display of engine testing data. "Yes, thank you, Vetros," she said icily, her voice as low as his.

With an insolent grin, her coworker dropped into the bucket seat next to her, flicking on his console. Vetros might be younger than L'Hanna by well over a decade, but the youngish human had the brains to back his recently-acquired position as Incom's Chief of Development Engineering. The new T-65 prototypes hadn't been his idea, but he had been the one to modify the detailed schematics and develop the engineering innovations that made the initial design functional.

Of course, all his contributions to the creation of the T-65 had subsequently convinced him that the entire project was, in some unfathomable sense, _his_. From the look of beaming pride on his face when the factory delivered the first four prototype X-wings for testing, one would have thought they were his four newborn children. That ridiculous sentiment of his was arguably where L'Hanna's comfortable life had begun going downhill, for while she sympathized with Vetros' oft-expressed frustration with the Empire, it had been the younger scientist's fiercely paternal attachment to the X-wing that had prompted him to do something about that frustration.

An irrational basis for action if ever there was one. Only by reminding herself that her irritation was mostly due to nerves was L'Hanna able to prevent herself from spearing Vetros with a murderous glare. "Finished up those comparisons yet?" she asked instead.

"'Fraid not," he said happily.

L'Hanna swiveled her seat ninety degrees precisely and let the spearing glare loose. "Vetros, I have been waiting for those comparisons for eighteen hours now," she snapped. "How do you expect me to issue a performance report for the board if you don't give me the blasted information?"

"Oh, like the board is ever on time anyway," Vetros scoffed. "Sheesh, Ve-Kiis, the report isn't even _due_ until first of the month."

"Which happens to be two days from now! What the kreth were you doing last night? Hell's gates, Vetros, it's not like there's a raging night life out there to distract you!" L'Hanna waved an impatient hand in the general direction of the compound wall, somewhere beyond which stretched the vast, deserted, sand-infested wastes of Fresia's Balat Archipelago. Unless one counted the fringe of resort towns on the coastlines of some of the southern islands, they were thousands of miles from anything even approximating civilization.

Vetros' bluish-gray eyes glinted merrily. "As it so happens," he said indignantly, "I was talking to my family back on Marekesh."

L'Hanna's spine snapped straight, and she swiveled her chair back abruptly, pretending to focus once more on the display. "Oh," she said stiffly.

It was a running source of amusement amongst their subordinates in Project Analysis—whenever Vetros was running late on a project, he claimed to have been talking to his family on Marekesh, a world that had recently been quarantined by the Imperial government after confirmed mass outbreaks of Corellian plague. The disease was fatal, without cure, and highly contagious; the citizens of the planet and their offworld relatives, who had no choice but to wait out the plague and hope for the best, had elicited the sympathy of the entire galaxy. Even Incom's top-secret programs had permitted their Marekeshi employees communication privileges with families under the quarantine.

Except, as everybody on the X-wing project except L'Hanna Ve-Kiis seemed to know, Vetros was from Coruscant, clear on the opposite side of the galaxy from Marekesh. The chief engineer was merrily pulling his superior's obliviously sympathetic leg.

Or so their subordinates were all meant to think. L'Hanna, on the other hand, knew that when Vetros claimed to have spoken with his nonexistent family on Marekesh, what the chief engineer meant was that he had been in contact with Rebel operatives.

"They think the quarantine may be lifted any day," Vetros added, in his usual upbeat style.

L'Hanna stared through the projected display of engine performance data.

The Rebel envoy was here.

* * *

It was a complete, unadulterated miracle that Luke had not suffered a nervous system overload when he took his first look out the window of their resort hotel room. If her six-year-old son had been exhilarated by the lake on Thesme, there were no words in any known language capable of expressing what he thought of the _ocean_.

His awestruck expression easily surpassed the look he'd worn at his first glimpse of hyperspace. The sight of the sweeping azure waves sucked him over to the window like a tractor beam—he stayed with his nose and fingers smushed against the transparisteel, breathing out soft, wondering murmurs. Padmé smiled in spite of her worry.

"D'ya see it, Mommy?" he demanded excitedly. "Lookit that!" He pried himself away from the miraculous vista just long enough to make sure she was appreciating it properly.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She set down her bag and joined him at the window, crossing her arms.

Luke's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's the white stuff by the water?" he demanded.

"It's sand."

This declaration was so preposterous that Luke tore his eyes off the ocean and stared at her, mouth and eyes as wide as viewports. "It is _not_," he insisted. "You can't have all that water right next to sand!"

"Water makes the sand," she told him. "It beats up rocks into tiny, tiny pieces until it's so small that it's sand."

"But—but—but it _can't_—" Luke stammered helplessly. Confounded, he turned back to the view, as though if he stared at the sand long enough it would somehow start being something else. The idea of sand and water together clearly contradicted all his foundational assumptions about nature. "But it _can't_, Mommy!"

"Why can't it?"

"Cause sand's dry and water's not!" he exclaimed, staring up at her as if wondering how she could possibly fail to see something so obvious.

"But that doesn't mean you can't have them both together," she reasoned.

"But—but…" Luke trailed off, lacking the vocabulary to express his bewilderment. He backed up from the window a step and bounced on his toes with his nose still pressed against the transparisteel.

"Can we go see it?" he asked suddenly. "Can we go down and see it, Mommy?"

Padmé glanced at the wall chrono. She would have liked nothing better than to take Luke down and let him play in the surf, maybe teach him how to swim. Unfortunately, that beach would be swarming with tourists—wealthy tourists. Company owners, relatives of ranking Imperials, maybe even the occasional politician. People who might recognize her.

She could not risk any unnecessary exposure. Besides, the scientists from Incom would be arriving in another hour.

"No," she said regretfully. "I need to meet some people for dinner."

"Can't we just go really fast?" he pleaded. "I wanna see it—"

"I said no, Luke," she told him, very firmly. His face fell.

"Later?" he tried sorrowfully.

"We'll see," she hedged. What else could she say? _I'm sorry, Luke, but I'm pretending we're both dead so that your homicidal father doesn't find us? _

Hardly.

"Let's get you a bath before we go down to dinner," she offered instead. Luke's eyes lit right back up. The prospect of splashing around in a whole tub full of water had not yet lost its appeal for a boy used to sonic showers, and Padmé intended to take full advantage of that for as long as she could. She'd been married to Anakin long enough to realize that males who appreciated the value of frequent bathing were a vanishingly rare species.

_Enjoy it while it lasts, Mommy_, she thought wryly, ushering Luke into the 'fresher.

* * *

If L'Hanna had not been an exquisitely trained physicist who knew that such a thing was patently impossible, she would have thought the air in the speeder had self-condensed tenfold, such was the phantom weight pressing on her shoulders.

An afternoon of marinating in her own worry had not done much to improve her mood. Thus far the only positive development of her workday had come when Vetros finally got the comparisons of the hyperdrive cooling systems' performances to her. If the threat of their upcoming foray into the outskirts of high treason disturbed _him_ at all, he'd given no sign of it, remaining his typically effusive, upbeat self.

As per their agreement earlier in the day, she had met Vetros in the compound hangar bay, whence they had made perfectly innocent plans to fly together to one of the resort towns for dinner, maybe a relaxing time on the beach—because, Vetros said, a family friend was at one of the resorts for a few days, and they all really ought to meet each other, they'd get along famously no doubt…

Inside the speeder she had been moderately surprised to find Vetros accompanied by Aresh, their scientific colleague from another department of the X-wing project. He regarded her with an expression of supreme calm from his spot in the back seat, as if this entire affair were nothing more extraordinary than an engine design test. Vetros, who believed all chauffeur droids were a crutch for the weak, occupied the pilot's chair. He invited her up to the front with the utmost ease.

"Where are we going?" Vetros asked coolly once they were past the compound security checkpoint.

For the first time, L'Hanna thought he sounded a little tense. But of course, that could just be because she was so on edge.

"Saldanel," Aresh said. "One of the bigger resort towns. It's maybe half an hour."

L'Hanna resisted the urge to swivel around and stare at their companion. Aresh was the one who knew where they were going—Vetros hadn't known—which meant Aresh was the one who'd arranged all this.

She was in the presence of a _real_ Rebel. Had been all this time, the whole time they'd been working on the project, before they'd even known the Empire was interested in the T-65. And she'd never known it.

Well. No wonder the man looked so ridiculously calm. He'd had plenty of practice, hadn't he?

"Sal-da-nel," Vetros murmured, punching the name into the navigation computer. Their route promptly displayed itself—they were flying south to one of the bigger islands in the archipelago, Saldan, and the town was on its southern coastline. L'Hanna perused the information display. It seemed Saldanel was one of the more elite resort towns. The list of hotels included several five-star chains. She was willing to bet that the unfamiliar names belonged to even more exclusive establishments.

"We're having dinner at the Kaadara Grande," Aresh added. "The Ryoo Room."

"That's the Nubian chain," L'Hanna observed, surprised.

Aresh nodded. "I find it deliciously ironic," he remarked.

L'Hanna spun back around in her seat irritably. It seemed like a brazen tempting of Fate to plot rebellion in a hotel chain that hailed from the Emperor's homeworld. Not that she thought the Emperor himself would be especially interested in the Kaadara Grande chain—doubtless too low-class for the likes of him. But still, it wasn't calculated to do anything for her nerves' benefit.

* * *

The Ryoo Room was just what the occasion wanted, Padmé thought. It was small, appointed in soothing blues and whites, with an open terrace at one end that let a soft sea breeze blow through the room. As per Fresian custom, there was no dinner table—the room was furnished with low couches and chairs, arranged in a loose semicircle amidst pots and trellises of ryoo flowers. Padmé ran her finger wistfully over the velvety blossoms. They were beautiful, but not as beautiful as her niece who shared their name.

Still, this place reminded her enough of Naboo that she felt safe. More importantly, she felt convinced that Luke was safe here. It was a dangerous thing to let herself think—she could not afford the carelessness of security, especially when that security was little more than an illusion. On the other hand, the sense of safety was very conducive to her sense of diplomacy, so she let herself appreciate it without assuming its validity. Even illusory safety was rare in her life these days.

Of course, safety was not one and the same as peace…

"Luke, don't put your feet on the sofa," she told her son for what was probably the fourth time already.

"But I can't reach the floor!" he objected. Padmé leveled stern eyes at him. Sullenly he swung his feet back over the edge of the couch, where they hung several undeniable inches above the floor.

"See?" he said resentfully.

"Yes, I see, but no shoes on the furniture."

"Then can I take my shoes off?"

She shook her head. "We're eating dinner with guests."

Luke glowered temperamentally, crossing his arms. Padmé lifted an eyebrow. "They're not going to like you much if you glare at them like that," she pointed out.

"I don't like _them_," he announced stubbornly.

"You haven't even met them."

"Don't care," he muttered.

"No feet on the sofa." In his irritation, Luke had already pulled his feet back up. With a melodramatic huff, he thrust them back down.

"I wanna go back to the room," he informed her.

She had little sympathy for his unhappiness. "You wouldn't have to worry about this if you hadn't disobeyed me," she pointed out.

Luke scowled, but the fact was indisputable.

"I'm hungry," he said instead.

"We'll eat when they get here," she said tersely. Her patience was not unlimited, and it was starting to feel a bit thin. She did not have attention to spare for whining—there was an important task ahead of her, and it would demand all her skill.

"But I'm hungry _now_," he said plaintively.

"That's enough," she told him sharply.

Luke started, his eyes wide. He fell silent, hunkered against the sofa arm and tracing the fabric pattern. Padmé leaned back in her own chair, enjoying the newfound silence and the sea breeze. It only lasted a moment before the waiter droid ushered in the Incom contacts.

* * *

L'Hanna was not exactly a connoisseur of fine hotels, but the Kaadara Grande certainly gave the impression of offering every luxury a being could want. Not that she had seen much of it. The hotel seemed to dissolve into a vague impression of airy, sleek halls and plush lounges as they swept through to the hotel restaurant. A waiter droid met them at the front and ushered them through the main dining area to the secluded Ryoo Room. It was a private dining room of exquisite charm, full of Nubian flowers and cushy seats—everything she had not expected a meeting site with a Rebel operative to be.

But then, the Rebel operative was everything she hadn't expected, either. L'Hanna had spent most of the day imagining a tough, hotheaded, battle-scarred man in his twenties, his six foot nine inch muscle-bound frame decked out in fatigues or a secondhand flight suit, with a blaster in one hand, a thermal detonator in the other, and a vibroknife clenched between his teeth for good measure. Instead she found herself shaking hands politely with one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen, petite, brunette, wearing a brilliant smile and a fashionably cut jacket and trousers. There was nary a weapon or scar in sight.

Of course, the small boy with her was adorable enough to disarm any being with a shred of conscience. L'Hanna could see why the Empire was having such a difficult time restraining the rebel movements, if all their agents were as disarming as this. Who would have expected a mother and her young child to be at this resort for the purpose of sealing an illicit arms deal?

_Good Force, _she thought bedazedly, _I'm about to be an arms dealer_.

"My son," the woman told them pleasantly. The child did not look nearly so delighted to meet them; the woman had to chivy him up off the sofa and coax him into saying hello. But even he looked as though he understood the proper procedures for illicit arms deal meetings better than the Incom scientists. At any rate, he'd apparently seen enough of them to be thoroughly bored. He kicked the side of the sofa with an adorably sullen scowl while the woman easily directed them into small talk until food arrived.

"Oh, yes, on my father's side," she said jestingly in response to Vetros' insolent query as to whether she had any relatives on Marekesh. The Rebels must have been in on his running joke too, from her knowing smile. "In fact, I think I have a cousin who knows your mother…"

"But where _are _you from?" L'Hanna asked politely when the laughter had died down.

"Oh, nowhere these days, it seems," she said, pleasantly evasive. "We travel quite a lot, don't we, sweetheart?"

The little boy just scowled, mumbled, and pushed his dinner around on his plate. Apparently he was not a fan of nerf steak pie and hoi broth.

"Are we almost done?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Now eat your dinner."

"I don't _like_ it."

The woman gave them a somewhat harassed smile. "Children. What can you say?"

They all laughed politely. Her son scowled even more fiercely, stabbing his fork into the pie aimlessly and smearing the sauce around his plate.

"Don't play with your food," his mother said. "If you don't eat, you can't have dessert."

He made a half-hearted attempt to eat some of the hoi broth, and L'Hanna held in a smirk as his features screwed up comically in disgust.

* * *

This conversation would be going much more smoothly if Luke would just _behave_.

Padmé strained to keep her frustration out of her voice as she told Luke to be quiet for what felt like the thousandth time. She was trying to be understanding, really—she'd been sublimely patient all the way through dessert and caf—but how Luke could possibly be so blasé and bored when she was in the middle of a meeting that could decide the ultimate fate of the galaxy was beyond her. She'd _told_ him this was important; why wouldn't he listen?

Finally she'd had enough. "If you'll all wait just a moment," she said into a slight lull in the conversation, "I need to take my son to bed."

"I'm not tired," Luke said sullenly from the floor by the window, where he was staring longingly at the beach.

"I think you are," she said firmly. "Come on."

She walked him out of the private room and into a turbolift.

"I don't _want_ to go to bed," Luke complained, "I want to go see the water and the sand."

"Luke, I already told you, we don't have any time to go out, and you're not listening very well to me, so you're going to have to stay in the room," she said, rubbing her forehead.

"But I don't _want_—"

"Sometimes you have to do things you don't like," she cut him off. "This is much more important than the beach."

Thankfully, Luke didn't say anything else the rest of the way back to the room. Padmé supervised him until he had changed into pajamas and climbed into bed. "You can watch the holovid for a while if you want," she said, feeling a little guilty at his doleful expression. "I'll be back later."

* * *

Padmé felt much more in her element as she returned to the Ryoo Room. She loved having Luke back, but being a mother was a totally new experience, and she had felt so off-balance trying to mesh her two worlds together. Now that Luke was safely out of the way, she could focus properly on the negotiations. Besides, he was doubtless happier watching holovid.

When she stepped back into the room, one of her guests was missing, "Ar—ah, _our_ friend will be back in a minute," said the woman; a quick nudge from her companion was all that prevented her from giving away the name of the missing man. "He just ducked out to the 'fresher."

Clearly, these were not professionals.

"The tyke sound asleep?" the remaining man asked affably. He was easily the most likable of the three. His bluish-gray eyes had an open quality, something Padmé rarely saw anymore. If anything, he was perhaps a little too unguarded in his manner. Meeting with Rebels was a dangerous business, and a healthy amount of paranoia was always wise.

Of course, that applied to her as well. Padmé quickly reminded herself not to be drawn in by a charming display of friendliness. "Yes," she said. "Sound asleep."

* * *

The beaches of the Balat Archipelago were mostly deserted at night, owing to chilly northerly gales that began blowing in the evening. Only one solitary soul, a man in a nondescript gray jacket, could be seen pacing along the strip of sand, braving the biting wind and watching the sun sink slowly over the ocean. No one was watching him, but if they had, they would have seen him reach into his pocket and pull out his blinking comlink. He regarded the screen for a moment, and then punched in a number.

As he did so, he turned and regarded the imposing outline of the Kaadara Grande with impassive eyes.

Whatever he said over the comlink was lost in the wind.

* * *

Piett had never been so relieved to see Major Tbron. His superior had been the first com officer to escape the medics' germophobic clutches, just five minutes ago. Although the commander of the communications division looked as though he had been trampled by a herd of obese rontos after a forty-klick hike through Alderaan's highest mountain range carrying a hundred-pound rucksack, he still looked more fit for duty than the ragged Piett.

"Well done, Lieutenant," rasped the major, rubbing a still-aching throat. Piett managed a clumsy salute in what he hoped was the right direction. "If you'll just get me up to speed, I'll relieve you—ah, Captain."

"Major," Piett heard Kale rumble from somewhere to his left. He attempted to modify his slouch into something that more closely resembled standing smartly at attention, prompted by a vague recollection that the captain was a strict sort. It was a very vague realization, but everything had been vague for several hours. "Status report on your division," the captain ordered.

"Another six men are due for release in four hours, barring complications, sir," Tbron said. "I expect the bridge duty roster will be functional by the end of the next daily cycle."

"Excellent," Kale said sourly. Piett was too tired to care what the captain thought; all he wanted was to give Tbron the quickest summary of the past several shifts that he could, stagger back to his quarters, and sleep for the rest of his life.

Then he heard the com on his console chime. "Recognition code: Encryption Black Twelve Alpha," a cool synthetic voice announced.

That was one of their agents on Fresia. He'd have to handle the call, since he was still the one logged in on the com command station. Kreth it anyway. "Excuse me, sirs," he slurred, "that's one of our undercover agents…"

"I'll get it, Lieutenant," Tbron said firmly.

A horrified Piett glanced back at Kale. "Ah, sir, as per regulations—"

Tbron caught his drift, and turned firmly to the captain. "Sir, the lieutenant is in no condition to handle sensitive information any longer," he argued. "It would be detrimental to the security of our operation on Fresia."

To Piett's vague surprise, Kale agreed. Apparently, seven consecutive shifts were enough to impress even the captain into a little leniency. "Dismissed, Lieutenant," he barked, stalking away.

"Get some rest," advised Tbron. "I'll log you off once this call is put through; don't bother reporting. Your log will do."

Piett managed another salute and stumbled back to his quarters, his eyes closed and his mind sunk in oblivion before he even hit his bunk. He didn't budge for two standard days, and so it came about that, alone of all the bridge officers, he missed every minute of the fracas that erupted.

Back on the bridge, Tbron verified the agent's ID and took the call over secure headset. "We have confirmed Rebels on planet," a voice scrambled beyond all recognition informed him.

Tbron sat up more stiffly, forgetting about his scratchy throat. "Request confirmation, ID, and location."

"Our agent inside Incom is meeting with them now," the other reported. "I've just received the status update. Make it two humans, one adult female accompanied by one juvenile male, descriptions and ID not yet acquired. It is possible that there are more underground. Present location is Balat Archipelago, Saldan Island, Kaadara Grande Hotel."

"Locals or offworld?"

"Offworld," the anonymous agent said. "Advise you check recent arrivals."

Tbron tapped smartly away at his command console, bringing up the list of ships known to have entered system in the last week. He frowned. Everything was either confirmed under local registry or the Incom Secure Register, and everybody had cleared with the _Tyranny_.

Of course, nobody but the ensign who'd been manning the sensor console knew that one of those ships _hadn't _quite passed the high-security clearance threshold. Neither did the log make any note of the fact that Lord Vader had nearly ordered the locally registered yacht _Sand Angel _to heave to for inspection. "Nearly" didn't count on official military records; and Piett had not had a chance to alert his commander to that unrecorded anomaly.

"I'll have Intelligence check it out," he told the agent. That sort of thing was their forte, after all. His job was monitoring the calls, not figuring out how a pair of mismatched Rebels might have sneaked through the cordon.

"Orders, sir?"

"Proceed covertly until otherwise notified," Tbron said. The captain would have to make the call on this one, but even a communications major knew it was better not to scare the quarry away too soon. "And keep us informed."

"Understood," the agent said. "Standing by for orders. Over and out."

* * *

He knew he shouldn't leave the hotel room. He knew that he should stay and watch _Perlemian Pirates_, or maybe that show on the Galactic Nature Channel about the galaxy's biggest poisonous predators. But even though _Perlemian Pirates _was his all-time favorite holovid show and he hardly ever got to see it on Tatooine without a sandstorm ruining the reception and the spiny jababoi shark on the Nature Channel had looked really cool, and even though he knew that Mommy would be really, _really _mad if he didn't stay where she told him to _again_, Luke could not shake the dreadful feeling that there was somebody dangerous here.

Somebody who would hurt Mommy.

And Mommy didn't know. Luke knew that too, knew it with absolute certainty. Luke knew these sorts of things, just like Obi-Wan did, but Mommy didn't, just like Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hadn't.

He had to tell her. Even if it got him in even bigger trouble. That was all there was to it.

Hoping Mommy wouldn't be _too _mad--he was saving her life, after all--Luke zipped his new blue jumpsuit back on, armed himself with a full bottle of hotel shampoo, and peeked out the door of the hotel room. Seeing nobody in the hall, he slipped out, ran past the bank of turbolifts, and went down the stairs instead, because he knew that nobody used the stairs, and that meant the bad person wouldn't be there.

He really hoped he found Mommy before the bad person did. Luke dashed down the stairs a little bit faster, not at all concerned that his socks might slip on the permacrete steps, 'cause he never slipped, and he _had _to make sure the bad person didn't get Mommy.

It never occurred to him to worry that the bad person might get _him_.

* * *


	14. As Brave as Mynock Man

A/N: First of all, the references to Mynock Man are from of MJ Mink's oneshot "Don't Look Back." I couldn't think up a better superhero name for the GFFA, so I took the liberty of borrowing hers. :P Secondly—I just realized that I have not updated this story since JULY and I am so sorry. If I were you readers, I would kill me. But—if you will bear with me, I just last night roughed in the plot for the rest of this story, so with any luck it will not take until next July to finish the whole thing. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this tidbit! It's not much, but maybe it'll tide you over until I get things wrapped up and can post without fear of contradicting myself.

* * *

Something cold and wary had begun to crawl in the bottom of Padmé's stomach by the time the third Incom scientist returned from his trip to the 'fresher, accompanied by a warning tingle in the back of her mind. Six years ago, she might not have listened to those sensations. But she was not the same cool, rational Senator she had once been. There were parts of her now that seemed to have developed a stronger ability to sense danger, to notice things that weren't quite right, and the rest of her had learned to listen. She jestingly told Silya it was her "Jedi instincts."

Well, her so-called "Jedi instincts" were acting up, and that was her cue to wrap this meeting as quickly as possible.

"I suppose it must be exciting to work for Incom," she said, looking to bring the conversation around to the topic of the X-wings.

"Quite," the one who had vanished for a few moments said smoothly. "And profitable, which I personally find the most exciting part."

Padmé seized on the opening quickly. "I'm sure," she said with a smile. "What's the going price for a top-of-the-line starcraft these days?"

"In the neighborhood of 50,000," he replied. Padmé saw the female scientist stiffen, and she well knew why. That was the contract price the Empire had offered for the X-wings.

"Of course," the younger man jumped in, "money's not all there is to it. We developers don't like parting with our babies to just anybody, you know."

The woman snorted. "You'll forgive the rest of us for not considering our projects our children, I hope."

"The point is," the younger man said with dignity, "should the right buyer come along—the buyer who'd really use the ship to its full potential—I don't imagine I'd charge as much."

"What might be a ballpark price?" Padmé asked pointedly.

"Oh, I'd say…thirty thousand or so."

The tension in the air was palpable. Padmé leaned back, considering. The older one—he seemed unaffected. In point of fact, he seemed a bit too unconcerned, and she felt a gut-deep certainty that he was hiding something dangerous. The younger man was playing it cool, but he was obviously excited. She didn't trust him any more. The woman's nervousness was prominently displayed, nothing hidden.

It was a fair price.

"I think I'd buy for that," she said pleasantly. Normally she'd have tried to haggle the price down—but she was getting too uneasy, and she didn't want to linger.

"You're an easy customer," observed the older man.

"I value quality over cost," she said lightly.

"You know," the younger one said, "if you're really interested, I could talk to someone about selling you one straight from the factory. I'd need to talk to a production manager, but I could arrange that with you tomorrow night over dinner. I'm sure these two would love to get out of the compound again."

Padmé nodded, understanding the arrangement. She would slip them a credit chip with half the indicated price tonight; tomorrow they would deliver the information the Rebellion needed to storm the Incom facility and make off with the plans and prototype fighters. She wasn't happy about risking a second rendezvous, or even about staying in-system another day, but this was what she'd expected. Both sides needed to sound out these dangerous waters before committing.

"I'll look forward to it," she said.

"Great," the youngish man said brightly, digging his hands into his pockets.

* * *

L'Hanna hadn't quite followed everything, but apparently she'd just made an arms deal, because the woman was ushering them out the door, making comments about looking forward to seeing them for dinner tomorrow.

_Wait_, she thought frantically, _we're doing this again tomorrow? I can't do this again! _

"It was lovely to meet you," the Rebel envoy was saying now, shaking her hand.

L'Hanna summoned up a smile, which nearly deserted her as she realized there was something hard and squared pressed between their hands.

It was a credit chip, she realized in surprise.

She _had _just made an arms deal. _L'Hanna Ve-Kiis, black marketer and traitor_. And all she'd had to do was sit down and eat dinner.

She tightened her fingers around the chip instinctively as the other woman let go and moved on to shake Vetros' hand, and tried not to betray the horrible queasy feeling that had come into her stomach.

The woman walked with them as far as the main entrance. L'Hanna's queasiness was growing worse with every step, but she didn't realize it was more than nerves until they were passing the check-in terminals. That was where, quite suddenly, she doubled over and vomited violently.

Cries of surprise and concern erupted from the other three, but L'Hanna barely heard anything. She sank to the floor, black spots whirling in front of her eyes, and a second later she had passed out cold.

* * *

"Kreth," muttered Aresh, rolling L'Hanna's frighteningly limp form over, "there must have been chari nuts in that dessert."

"Chari nuts?" Vetros said anxiously, patting his colleahue's cheeks in an attempt to revive her.

"There were no nuts," the Rebel envoy said, kneeling and feeling L'Hanna's feverish pulse.

"It only had to be a trace," Aresh told them. "She's violently allergic. I saw the same thing happen to her at a department meeting once, a couple years ago. Before you got here, Vetros."

"Did you?" Vetros asked fiercely.

Aresh nodded. "Ma'am, we need to take her down to the med bay for a few minutes. A quick shot of veremol will take care of it."

"I'll show you the way," the Rebel envoy said immediately.

"Vetros," Aresh ordered, hefting L'Hanna up into his arms, "you go ahead and get the speeder. We'll be pushing it to get back inside the compound before curfew otherwise."

Vetros eyed him uncertainly. "Are you sure she'll be—"

"Yes, yes, the veremol will have her back on her feet in a few minutes," Aresh assured him. "Hurry up, we can't risk missing the curfew."

They both knew the three of them would land a quick trip to the investigative department if they didn't return to the compound in time. There were more than a few drawbacks to running top-secret Imperial weapons development programs. They would all be shot for treason if Incom suspected what they'd been up to at the Kaadara Grande.

"I'll bring it around to the medbay door," Vetros said reluctantly.

* * *

Padmé's misgivings dissolved in a flood of compassion at the sudden collapse of the woman. There was no thought of danger in her mind as she ushered the older scientist to the hotel medbay. A medical droid quickly took charge and fulfilled his instructions to inject the woman with a double dose of veremol.

No sooner had the stricken scientist been laid out on a bed than the man suddenly grabbed Padmé's shoulder and pressed a datacard into her hand, along with two of the twenty-thousand-credit chips she'd slipped them.

"What is this?" she murmured, willing her heart to stay calm.

"The information you need," he said shortly. "We were watched. Take your son and that intelligence out of system tonight."

To her credit, Padmé didn't so much as blink, even though her heart suddenly missed a beat and she had to order herself to start breathing again. "You planned that," she said softly, nodding infinitesimally towards the slowly reviving woman on the bed.

"I prepare for all contingencies," he said. "She'll be fine."

"Keep the money," Padmé told him, trying to shift the chips back to his hand.

"I don't want money," he said. "The cause needs it more."

"At least give hers back," Padmé persisted. "She'll suspect."

The man relented, and took one of the chips back. On the cot, his colleague was blinking dazedly, starting to sit up. "Go on."

"Give her my regards," Padmé murmured, turning towards the door.

"Watch out for him," the Rebel agent told her.

There was no need to clarify who _he _was. "I will."

Padmé made herself walk with measured, unperturbed step back to her room several floors up. But she couldn't keep her heart from racing madly the whole way. _Sorry, Luke_, she thought with breathless fright, _but we're definitely not stopping to see the ocean_.

* * *

Sixteen flights of stairs were a bit much for Luke's short legs, but he was so full of nervous energy that the stitch in his side and his tired muscles didn't stop him for a second. Finally, realizing he was now on the same floor as the bad man and Mommy, he sneaked out into a hallway, bottle of shampoo held at the ready. He had decided on the way down that he'd better figure out what the bad man looked like, otherwise Mommy wouldn't know who to look out for, so instead of going back to the restaurant he set off on the trail of the bad man.

He dashed through the halls quickly, hiding behind big potted plants or sofas whenever he felt like somebody was coming and might see him. They might try to take him back to Mommy if they caught him running around by himself.

After a little while he began to smell something strange. It smelled really salty and wet, which was weird, because water wasn't supposed to smell salty. Now he _knew _something was wrong! The closer Luke got to the place were he could tell the bad man was, the more he could smell the salty water, and then he began to hear a sound that reminded him of the thunderstorm on Thesme. Except this time, Luke noted with puzzlement, it thund-ed one right after another with only a little stop in between, and there was always an odd sucking _woosh_ noise right afterwards. Then, all of a sudden, he sneaked through a shaded door and found himself outside.

Luke was so flabbergasted by what he saw that he almost dropped his shampoo bottle.

Ahead of him the big lonely sun seemed to be drowning in a vast—no, _endless_—collection of water. There was so much water it could have covered all of Tatooine. He could probably swim his whole life and never get to the end of it. And as if that wasn't enough, the water was trying to eat the land up! Luke watched in horror as the roaring water bashed against the rolling sand over and over again, beating it into sloppy goo, washing away a little bit more of it every time, and shuddered at the thought that if he got close enough the water would eat _him _up too.

No wonder Mommy hadn't wanted to take him down here before dinner.

Luke resolved to stay as far away from the ravenous ocean as possible. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't leave—not without seeing who the bad man was. Terrified within an inch of his young life, but determined that nothing in the whole galaxy would stop him from saving Mommy, Luke ducked behind a sand dune and started sneaking along the beach towards the place where he knew the bad man was loitering. He could do this. He would just imagine he was Mynock Man from the holovid show. Mynock Man, just like his daddy, wasn't scared of _anything_.

He had edged what felt dangerously close to the waves, and his teeth were chattering from the freezing wind, before he peeked out from behind a collection of abandoned beach chairs and saw the man. His small hand clenched more tightly around the neck of the shampoo bottle and he ducked his head as low as possible. The sun was behind them, and Luke couldn't make out much more than a silhouette. The man was walking back and forth on an open stretch of sand. Luke's eyes widened as he saw how close the man dared go to the madly thrashing water.

As Luke watched, trying very hard to see what the man's face looked like, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a comlink. "Copy, One, this is Two," the man said in a smooth voice that made Luke's spine shiver.

A voice crackled over the speaker. "We have a confirmed black market transaction in process. Mark One is set for tomorrow night, same time, same place," said the person on the other end of the comlink. Luke gasped—he recognized that voice!

"There's _two _bad men," he whispered to himself. And he knew just who the other one was.

He really had to tell Mommy about this.

"Copy, One," said the man in front of him. Luke held his breath and didn't dare budge as the man meandered right up to his collection of beach chairs. He could see the man's face now—it was plain, with a biggish nose and thick eyebrows and a chin that was only barely there, and the eyes were sharp and brown and cold. Luke shivered again. "What about Mark Two?"

"No tracking on Mark Two," the familiar voice admitted. "She sent him up halfway through. Can't guarantee him on scene tomorrow but should be within the target area. He's not critical."

"And you've got Incom One and Two?"

"Affirmative," said the voice. "Incom Two had an allergic reaction at dinner, so ETA may be late. Make sure there's no trouble at the compound gate."

"I'll put Hanamer on it," said the man. "Do you have any ID on Marks One and Two yet?"

"Not yet. That'll be a job for the intel team shipside. I figure Mark One for a Level One cell member, though, she's got about a hundred twenty thousand credits in straight chips on hand. I'll try a trace on my sample later but it's probably been laundered already."

"Worth a shot," said the man. "And you're sure they don't suspect anything?"

"They didn't get a whiff," assured the other. "They'll walk right into the sting op tomorrow night. Should be an easy catch."

"I guess a woman and a kid can't put up much of a fight," agreed the man. "Keep up the good work, One."

"Copy, Two. Over and out."

The man began punching numbers on his comlink, and Luke thought over what he'd just heard from beneath the long, low beach chair. He wasn't sure—but it sounded like the bad men were going to set a trap for him and Mommy. Luke pictured a cage dropping down over them, or a net, or a big pit full of gigantic bloodsucking bugs with a false floor over it, like the traps in some of the episodes of Perlemian Pirates. Even Mynock Man would have trouble escaping from a pit of bloodsucking bugs.

Suddenly, the man's feet appeared right in front of him! Luke cringed in terror as the man suddenly sat down—right in the very chair he was hiding under!

Luke didn't even breathe as the man began talking again on the comlink. _How am I gonna get out of here? _he wondered desperately, hugging his bottle of shampoo tightly.

* * *

The captain lit up like the fireworks on Empire Day when Tbron relayed the report from the undercover agent. If there was anything Kale enjoyed more than harassing his crew, it was hunting Rebels. It did not seem to disturb the captain that the insurgents appeared to be alert to a supposedly top-secret military project.

In fact, he was just disappointed that there were only two of them. And that was if they counted the child.

"I think we ought to take into consideration, sir, that the child could have been coerced," the _Tyranny_'s chief intelligence specialist suggested. "We've had other instances of kidnapping. It could be the woman is using him for her cover, nothing more."

"Possible," Kale was forced to admit. He looked quite sour at the possibility that he might only have one victim to sink his teeth into. Capriciously cruel as the captain might be, he could only get away with so much, and torturing possible child trafficking victims was a quick recipe for losing one's command.

"But hardly relevant," added the executive officer dismissively. Dravka was his name, and he had not survived six months of close proximity to the captain by being nice. The intelligence specialist very nearly cringed as Dravka continued in scathing tones, "You and your department can fret about the details later. Let's focus on actually catching the little runt before fantasizing about his history, shall we?"

"I trust the agent we placed at Incom has enough sense not to startle the Rebels at first sight?" Kale asked the intelligence specialist acidly.

"He's an excellent agent, sir," said the specialist. "He's been luring the Incom sympathizers out for several months now. I have every confidence in his ability to handle the Rebels."

"I hope for your sake you're right," Kale told him crisply.

The agent shrank further into his seat without making another pointless assurance, well aware of what the captain would do to him if he were wrong. In the brief moment of silence the captain's com station chimed.

"Update from the secondary agent, sir," Major Tbron's haggard voice announced into the cabin.

"Patch it through to the conference room," Kale ordered. The collected officers listened keenly.

"This is Beta," a scrambled voice announced through spitting static. "We're set to trap the Rebels tomorrow night, Ryoo Room, Kaadara Grande Hotel, Saldanel, Balat Archipelago, nineteen hundred hours local. Alpha is returning to the Incom compound to maintain surveillance on the scientists. I will maintain surveillance on the woman and child from a distance unless otherwise notified."

"You're certain they'll be there?" Kale demanded, eyeing his relieved intelligence chief with something approaching disappointment.

"We have an arms deal in progress," the agent responded briskly. "The woman's already paid out sixty thousand. She won't leave now unless somebody slips and spooks her."

"I'll have the garrison prepped for a sting operation, sir," the _Tyranny_'s army liaison captain announced promptly. "We'll want aerial support, of course." He glanced questioningly at the starfighter division commander, who nodded tersely. Any suggestion that they might be less than completely combat ready at all times could be counted upon to annoy starfighter pilots.

"All your squads, Commander Yadassa," Kale ordered. "I want coverage over the entire planetary region. The _Tyranny _will be standing by at general quarters."

"They won't get past my wings," Yadassa said, belligerently omitting the _sir_. The commander had joined the Navy only recently, but he was an ex-merchant mariner. Having been commanding starfighter squads against Outer Rim pirates while Kale was still in the cradle, the seasoned pilot had little tolerance for the criticisms of a youngish commanding officer.

"You will forgive me if I take no chances," Kale hissed, not bothering to even look at Yadassa. Several of the officers exchanged glances, as if in a sort of silent eulogy. None of them thought it unlikely that, should there be a skirmish, a stray shot from the _Tyranny_ might accidentally blast Yadassa's fighter into a glittering cloud of atomic debris.

That was what had happened to Commander Kirscherran, after all.

And nobody had forgotten how Major Parlock, the former chief engineer, had been scalded to death by a burst engine coolant pipe a few months ago. Shortly before that, Lieutenant Marabo from the com division had succumbed to an incurable strain of the Phyrrian Plague—the first case of that disease the galaxy had seen in the last fifty years.

"We'll get them, sir," Dravka said solidly. The rest of them nodded fervently.

* * *

tbc...


	15. The Poodoo Hits The Fan

A/N: Blaster bolts, I can't remember the last time I updated a story so quickly! And that was with a shoulder surgery thrown into the mix last week. :) No promises on the next chapter, being as I'm now typing left-handed and progress will be slower, but I am considerably ahead so it shouldn't be too bad. Thank you to the reviewers! If I haven't replied to you yet, I will eventually…but I figure you'd prefer more story first. :P

* * *

Luke listened anxiously to the bad man reporting in the comlink overhead. He was talking about trapping Mommy again. Luke didn't know who he was talking to this time, the voice wasn't familiar. Would the bad man _ever_ leave? It felt like he would be seven years old by the time he could get up—or maybe even eight. _I'll never_ _get back to Mommy,_ he thought despairingly.

At least the bad man wasn't going to find him under here. Not when he was sitting right on top of him, anyway. Not as long as Luke stayed really quiet and didn't move.

Finally, _finally_, the bad man switched off his comlink. Luke took a deep, relieved breath as the man got up off the beach chair and began wandering away towards the hotel…

…And just then, the wind blew a whole bunch of sand up his nose.

Luke sneezed hard enough to rock the planet out of orbit.

* * *

The man who had identified himself as Beta might not look very remarkable, but one did not get to be an intelligence operative by failing to observe the slightest anomaly. He turned at the sound of a sneeze behind him, unhurriedly, with no show of alarm. If he was being spied on, then clearly it was not a professional; and if he wasn't being spied on, he did not want to look unduly startled.

For all his careful analysis, though, Beta had not expected to see a small blond boy tumble out from beneath the chair he'd just been occupying.

From the look of panic on the kid's face, he'd definitely been spying.

_It's the Rebel kid_, Beta realized in the split-second before the youngster began scrambling through the sand towards the hotel.

The kid had overheard, and if he got back into the hotel, the plan was completely shot. Beta sprinted across the sand like his life depended on it. Knowing Captain Kale, after all, it very well might.

* * *

Luke sucked in a terrified breath as he dashed over the sand as fast as possible. He had to get to the hotel, he just had to—

But even though Luke was much lighter than the bad man and his feet didn't sink so much in the sand, the bad man was too big and strong. Luke had never, ever run so hard in his life—Mynock Man himself couldn't have run any faster—but one second he was scrambling up a sand dune and the next something had yanked his foot down hard, and he went tumbling back down and sand got up his mouth and nose and eyes.

But he still had the shampoo bottle. Luke grabbed the fluted neck and swung it hard. Even though he couldn't see anything cause the sand was making him cry, the bottle whacked hard into the bad man's shins. The man shouted something really naughty that Aunt Beru would have spanked him for saying. Luke, still gripping the shampoo bottle, made to scramble up and start running again, but the man tripped him, and then a huge heavy weight slammed him down into the sand so hard he couldn't breathe.

"Holy Sith, kid," growled the bad man right in Luke's ringing ears. "Cut it out."

Luke would have yelled for Mommy, but he still couldn't breathe. Frantically he tried to grab for his throat. The bad man rolled off of him and pulled him sitting up, and _still _he couldn't breathe even though his mouth was working really hard.

"Got the wind knocked out of you?" asked the bad man. He let go of one of Luke's hands and rapped him on the back, and finally Luke's lungs remembered how to work.

"Mommy," he gasped out.

"Like the nine hells," laughed the bad man, yanking Luke onto his feet by a handful of hair. "You're coming with me, short stuff."

"No!" Luke yelled, and he tried to twist away and run back to the hotel, but the bad man had his arm again.

"That's enough, Trouble," the bad man snapped. Luke tried to swing the shampoo bottle at him and maybe hit him in the nose, but the bad man grabbed his other hand too and stopped him.

So Luke squeezed the bottle instead.

A jet of creamy-looking, soapy-smelling liquid shot out of the broken-open nozzle on top and landed right in the bad man's face. He howled, and let go of Luke to rub his eyes.

_Ha! Take that, bantha poodoo! _Luke ran with all his might back to the hotel, feeling at least as cool as Mynock Man.

But just as he got to the top of the dune, he suddenly felt really scared and he heard a whiny buzz that sounded like a blaster. Luke twisted around but he was only fast enough to see a blue circle flash up at him out of the dusk.

* * *

Padmé wasted no time rushing to their hotel room. She had not kept herself out of the Empire's field of vision for six years by ignoring warnings. She paused only long enough to check the information on the chip in her ship's computer.

It was all there—blueprints, detailed diagrams, technical specifications, construction directions, test results and comparisons—right down to the passcodes for the hangar the prototype ships were stored in. _And_ all the intelligence they could want to conduct a raid, from the patrol patterns of the compound guards to the itinerary of the Star Destroyer hovering overhead.

She extracted the chip from the computer and switched Threepio and Artoo on. "Artoo, start the engines," she ordered. "We're leaving."

"Mistress Padmé!" Threepio gasped. "Is everything alright?"

"If we get out of here quickly, yes," she told him. Ignoring his immediate wail of dismay, she strode briskly out of the ship and took the turbolift up to the sixteenth floor. The door scanned her palm print and let her in once it was satisfied she was the customer who had paid for the room.

"Luke!" she called as soon as the door was shut. "Luke, honey, we have to go." She hated frightening him—and this would surely frighten him—but she could worry about calming him down once they were safely in hyperspace.

Luke didn't reply, but she heard the faint chatter of the holovid coming from the bedroom. Most likely he had fallen asleep. She hurried in to wake him, but the bedroom was empty. The Galactic Nature Channel's show host rattled away, casting a faint glow over the rumpled covers of the bed. Padmé felt a spasm of panic until she noticed a line of light beneath the door to the 'fresher. She crossed the room and pounded on the surface. "Luke?"

The panic resurged when there was still no answer. Padmé didn't wait another second to force the door open. The 'fresher was empty. Her shampoo bottle was inexplicably absent. But far worse…

…So was Luke.

* * *

Obi-Wan Kenobi had a sneaking suspicion that his solitude was less than complete. One box of Bantha Bites accidentally damaged in the factory was unusual, but not unheard-of. When he discovered the hole in the second box on the shelf, he began to wonder. After the third box turned out to be empty as well, the Jedi Master felt confident in concluding that something was amiss.

Furthermore, he had several times heard a skittering sound when he walked into the galley, a sound which vanished within an instant of his entry, so quickly it could not be identified or located. And whenever he opened the pantry, he couldn't escape the conviction that _someone_ was watching him.

He examined it several times. But there didn't appear to be anything there.

Maybe it was some invisible exotic rodent or insect colony. Force, he hoped not. He had entirely enough to explain to Padmé as it was without adding pest infestations to the list. First Luke had vanished from under his nose, and now he couldn't even figure out what was happening to his Bantha Bites.

_If only Anakin was here to see me going senile in my old age_, he thought ruefully.

This clumsiness had better wear off quickly. It was just two more hours to Fresia. And when he got there, he had best be prepared to deal with the worst a mischievous six-year-old Skywalker could throw at him, because there was no way Luke could have gone this long without getting into some kind of trouble.

_Blast it, Anakin, this is _completely_ your fault_.

* * *

As Agent Beta clambered up the sand dune to collect the unconscious body of the Rebel kid, he realized one thing very, very quickly. He might have stopped the kid from alerting the woman to the planned sting operation tomorrow night, but she was still going to know something was up when Short Stuff vanished into thin air. If she had any kind of sense, she was going to run for it—and probably so would the Incom scientists.

The plan was completely shot to hell.

It was time to improvise.

He swung the kid under one arm—thank the goddess he didn't weigh much—and found a maintenance room just inside the hotel. Dumping the kid on the floor, he whipped out the comlink and punched in the pre-planned contingency signal. The Incom scientists were his teammate's responsibility, and he didn't think Alpha would have any trouble adjusting to the sudden change of circumstances.

It was the woman he was worried about. But if he was quick enough, he ought to be able to wrap up that loose end too before she could bolt.

Stop one: the hotel security center.

* * *

L'Hanna was more than a little mortified when she came to in the hospital bay of the hotel. She would have been even more mortified if she had been fully conscious at the time. But the effects of the veremol hadn't thoroughly kicked in before Aresh began ushering her towards the exit.

"Sorry, we have to hurry," he said. "We'll risk missing the curfew time."

A fuzzy portion of L'Hanna's brain remembered that missing curfew was a very bad thing, so she staggered along, leaning heavily on his arm, until they piled into the speeder. Vetros was again flying.

"Is she alright?" he asked.

"She'll be fine," Aresh said, settling her into the back seat while he took the front seat. "Let's go."

L'Hanna slumped across the back seat, since the acceleration made her even more dizzy than previously. Her ears and vision grew fuzzy, so she closed her eyes, and Vetros and Aresh's voices shrank into a dim buzzing. A couple minutes or so passed before a sudden screech of alarm jolted her back to earth.

"What the hells do you think you're doing?" Vetros yelped in the front seat.

L'Hanna's eyes flew open. Her angle was a bit skewed, since she was lying down and had to peer sideways between the seats, but there was no mistaking the BlasTech DH-17 that Aresh was holding squarely against Vetros' head.

"I'm restoring the Republic," Aresh said evenly. "Rebelling. Resisting arrest. Fomenting dissension. Disturbing the peace. Whatever you feel like calling it today. Now adjust your course to sixty-five-by-twelve."

Vetros rummaged his hand nervously in his pocket, gripped the controls tightly with his other hand. L'Hanna could hear the note of fear in his voice. "Look, we're all in this together," he got out. "You're crazy."

"Dr. Ve-Kiis and I are in this together," Aresh corrected. "Adjust your course to sixty-five-by-twelve."

"Aresh, I don't know what you think I—"

"Do it!" Aresh jammed the blaster sharply into Vetros' shaggy hair.

"All right, all right," Vetros breathed. "I'm changing it. See? Sixty-five-by-twelve."

Aresh's only response was to suddenly rip Vetros' hand out of his pocket. "And I'll take this," he added, holding up a sleek black comlink. "Can't have your buddy back in Saldanel getting any bright ideas."

_His buddy?_

"Dr. Ve-Kiis, would you be so kind as to keep an eye on this?" Aresh asked, handing her the comlink. "Tell me if it picks up an incoming signal."

She took it and suddenly found her voice. "What's going on?" she asked shakily. "Vetros?"

"I swear, I don't know what—"

"Shut up and fly," Aresh ordered, his finger tightening on the blaster trigger. "I'm sorry about all this, Dr. Ve-Kiis, but your friend Vetros here is an Imperial spy."

L'Hanna opened her mouth to deny such nonsense vehemently. Then her fingers tightened around the cold shaft of the comlink, and her mind's eye saw them all back in the Ryoo Room, Vetros' hands shifting and shrugging in his pockets. She'd thought it was just his way of relaxing…but what if he'd really been sending silent signals over that comlink the entire time?

_Oh, holy goddess, I'm going to be sick… _"Vetros?" she pleaded. "Vetros, it's not true, is it?"

"Of _course_ it's not—"

"I said shut up," Aresh barked. "You fly, and if you want to still be alive later that's _all_ you're going to do, got that?"

Vetros leveled an icy stare at Aresh. "You won't get away," he said softly. "You Rebels don't stand a snowflake's chance on Tatooine."

"Can it, Captain Academy," Aresh warned, twitching his finger suggestively on the blaster trigger. "Before I decide you're too much of a liability."

Vetros gave a mocking inclination of his head and kept both hands on the controls, falling silent.

"Well, I'm not a liability," L'Hanna finally spoke up. She clutched sweaty fingers around the comlink and added, "I want to know where we're going."

"Far away from here," Aresh said. "Unless you feel like following Captain Academy here back to his pals in the nearest Imperial detention block."

L'Hanna swallowed. _Vetros wouldn't do that to me_.

But her opinions about Vetros were intangible and confused, and the comlink slipping in her damp grip was solid fact. She was a scientist. So she had to go with the facts. "We need to warn the Rebel envoy first," she said, surprised to find that she had at least one clear idea of how to go about becoming a fugitive.

"I already took care of it," Aresh said firmly. Vetros stiffened and L'Hanna saw his reflected face grow startled and angry in the windshield glass.

"Well done," he said through tight lips. "Really, only you Rebels would think of poisoning your accomplices to—"

"What part of _shut up_ didn't you understand?" Aresh barked, jamming the blaster's muzzle even more sharply into the side of Vetros' head.

"Oh," Vetros laughed, "so you _didn't_ tell Dr. Ve-Kiis you planned on spiking her food—"

Aresh pulled the trigger.

Vetros slumped with a jerk and L'Hanna screamed, praying that it had only been a stun blast, but the tell-tale smell of ozone flooded acridly through interior of the speeder, followed quickly by the stench of the blood that had sprayed in a fine mist across the window. Petrified, she watched Aresh lean over, open the pilot's door, and shove Vetros' body out into the ocean, then slide into the newly-vacant seat and adjust the course before the speeder could plunge into the water itself.

"Damn," he said mildly. "I didn't want to do that."

"You killed him," L'Hanna whispered faintly. "You _killed_ him!"

"It was him or us," Aresh told her. "Come on, get up front."

"What, so you can off me next?" she shouted. "I don't think so!" She wrestled frantically with the door on her side of the back seat, with some haphazard plan of jumping out into the sea and attempting to swim to the nearest island in the archipelago. Slim though her chances would be, she was certain there was no other way she would get out of this speeder alive—

"Stop, I locked the doors," Aresh said. "I'm not going to hurt you. Look"—he set the blaster down on the passenger seat—"take it. Go on."

Shaking, L'Hanna inched her hand forward towards the blaster, and saw Vetros' head snap sideways in a spray of gore a thousand times before the grip was solidly in her hand and the trigger beneath her finger. She forced the raw memory aside just far enough to hold the muzzle of the blaster up, aligned with clinical precision on Aresh's right ear. _You can do it if you have to, _she breathed to herself, _you can do it if you have to…_

"You poisoned my food?" she demanded, willing her voice not to waver.

He didn't flinch. "I didn't have any other way to get the Rebel envoy alone long enough to warn her," he explained. "I had to create a distraction."

"Why should I believe you? I believed Vetros and look how that turned out!" Her voice spiraled up to a shrill screech.

"Look, I'll tell you where we're going," Aresh said calmly. "I have a YT-1450 waiting at a hangar a couple of islands away. We're going to take out of the system and make a few random jumps to scramble our trail, probably switch ships a couple of times, and then we'll join up with a Rebel cell on Dantooine. They have a secret base there. We'll be out of the Empire's reach as long we lay low. But if you shoot me you don't stand a chance of getting out of this system."

"What if I wait until we get to the ship, and _then_ I shoot you?" she threatened.

"No good," he pointed out. "One of us has to fly the ship, and one of us has to man the cannons. I guarantee you that Star Destroyer is going to try to blockade the system. Do you think you can fly, shoot at a couple squadrons of TIEs, _and_ calculate a hyperspace jump at the same time?"

L'Hanna opened her mouth to retort that she was an astrophysics engineer and could calculate jumps in her sleep, thank you very much, but was cut off by the sudden buzzing of the comlink now sitting in her lap.

"The comlink!" she gasped. "Aresh, what do I do?"

"Give it to me!" he hissed. She fumbled it into his hand and he switched it on. "This is One," he said into the mouthpiece, attempting to imitate Vetros' voice.

"Copy, One, this is Two. Situation critical," a voice crackled out. "You have to move on Incom One and Two now."

L'Hanna's stomach did a sickening flip, and she stared at the comlink. Aresh had been telling the truth. The blaster slowly lowered as her every sense remained glued on the comlink.

"Already taken care of, Two," Aresh said, glancing at her.

There was a confused pause from the other side. "Already?" the voice said suspiciously.

"Incom One got nervous," Aresh said shortly. "En route to base now. Over and out." He switched off the comlink, opened the pilot-side door again, and chucked the little device out into the ocean with as much emotion as he had Vetros. "That maybe bought us fifteen minutes," he observed dispassionately.

L'Hanna waited a second before climbing into the co-pilot seat beside him, shuddering away from the blood spattered across the opposite side of the interior. She set the blaster down on the console between them and rubbed her hair back nervously. "Well, fifteen minutes better be enough," she muttered at last.

He glanced at her. "It will."

* * *

tbc...


	16. Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow

A/N: Alright! Ladies and gentlemen, the author is ecstatically delighted to report that… *drumroll* … _Far More Than Rubies _is finished! You read that right—FINISHED. Written, beta'd, and polished to a bright sparkly shine! *does victory dance* I don't have it entirely broken out into chapters yet but I'm estimating at least four or five. Henceforth they should be arriving very regularly until we get to the end. Thank you all for being so patient! It's been nearly two years, but we're nearly there…in the meantime, hope you enjoy this installment. It's rather long.

* * *

Padmé searched the entire sixteenth floor, and then the fifteenth, and then the fourteenth through the fourth, wishing she could run through the halls screaming for him frantically. She couldn't—that would draw unwanted attention and she didn't know if there was an Imperial agent about.

It didn't matter in the end; there was no sign of Luke anywhere. That left two possibilities: either he was somewhere in the lower floors where the restaurants and recreational facilities were housed…

…Or he wasn't in the hotel at all.

Her total helplessness made her want to vomit. She had no idea where Luke was, and no idea why he wasn't where she'd left him. He could have just trotted off to explore—and if he had, Force, she was going to _kill_ that boy when she caught up with him—or an Imperial agent might have snatched him from the room. But she didn't _know_, and she had no idea where he might be, and she couldn't draw attention to herself, else the valuable information in her possession might never get back to the resistance movements—

—And she might never find her son.

She stopped in the middle of the hall, pondered for a second, and then rushed back up to her ship, her priorities suddenly clear. If she couldn't search openly for Luke until the information had been passed on, she'd have to do that first. She sealed the ramp of the ship behind her, placed Artoo on guard duty, and fired up the com system in the cockpit.

The few minutes that the system took to connect her with the Rebel enclave in the neighboring star system of Gererro seemed like an eternity. But at last the projector came to life. She was surprised to find she recognized the face on the other end of the encrypted connection.

"Raymus!"

Bail Organa's most trusted captain managed to crack his decorum long enough to offer her a smile. "Our friend sent me here to oversee the operation. I'm surprised you called so soon, Ms. Dyelin," he said. "How's the water on Fresia?"

"Never warmer," she said, giving him the other half of the recognition code. He relaxed a little. "In fact, I've got a souvenir for you."

Captain Antilles' brown eyes glowed feverishly. "How soon can you get it to me?" he asked, barely able to contain his excitement.

Padmé plugged the chip into its slot and hit the _transmit_ button. "Would _now_ be soon enough?"

Antilles glanced aside and then grinned at something beyond his pickup perimeter. "Good Force…you've got _everything_."

"How soon can you get here?" she asked. "I know you don't want to rush this, but—they're on to me."

His expression turned grim. "Then for Force's sake, get out of there, Pa—Ryra. I've got the operation finalized on my end."

"There's a Star Destroyer in orbit here."

"So I've heard. Don't worry. It'll be gone shortly."

Padmé decided she'd best not ask just what Raymus had up his sleeve that would lure the _Tyranny_ away from the Fre'ji system. "That's not all they've got guarding this system, you know. There's a network of sentry drones."

Antilles just grinned. "Another of our undercover operatives has that part covered already. And looking at this information you've just sent, it looks like our operative in Incom has everything else taken care of. Don't worry about us. Just get yourself out of there. Our end of it will be a breeze, I guarantee it."

Padmé blew out a deep breath. "Alright. May the Force be with you. I'll be out of this system as soon as possible."

"May the Force be with you."

She cut the connection and rubbed her forehead for a moment. Then she hastened out of the ship in search of Luke, stopping only to run the information chip through the galley food disintegrator until it was nothing but powdered metal. This accomplished, she ran straight down to the main desk of the hotel. With a shamelessness that would have horrified her mother, she plunged into the waiting line and shoved several outraged customers aside until she could talk to the droid at the desk.

"Excuse me," she panted, waving her hands at all of them, "excuse me, please, I'm terribly sorry, but I've lost my six-year-old—"

"Now, now, ma'am," soothed the protocol unit behind the countertop, "just let me give you directions to the security center and we'll find your child momentarily."

Padmé had to wait a few minutes before the late-night security officer on duty arrived to escort her to the security center. "Sorry," he said apologetically, "my shift buddy came down sick, so I'm the only officer working just now, and I've been upstairs for the last hour. Reported stolen purse. Turned out the owner just put it in her 'fresher cupboard and forgot, but I tell you, it's a mounds of paperwork—"

"So you haven't been monitoring the security cams?" Padmé demanded anxiously.

"Sorry, ma'am, I haven't been able to get back to the station since I checked in. But don't worry, the droids will be on it." They stepped out of the lift into a basement hallway and brushed past a man walking in the opposite direction before reaching the station entrance. The officer let her in and Padmé immediately began questioning the droid in control of the monitors.

"I'm looking for my son—six years old, about this high, blond hair, blue eyes, have you seen him on the monitors?"

The droid performed several searches, but the most recent images of Luke were when she had taken him upstairs to go to bed. There were no cameras inside the hotel room, and according to the hallway cameras he had never left.

"Ma'am," asked the officer tentatively, "are you sure he's not hiding in the room?"

"Yes, I'm sure!" she snapped. The fear was sitting heavily in her stomach. She felt sickeningly certain that Luke was not merely gallivanting around the hotel. The warning from the Rebel operative had come too late. Someone must have taken him. And someone had erased all the security recordings.

And the only people who would be interested in taking Luke were the Imperial spies the Rebel operative had warned her about. That meant that ultimately, there was only place they would have taken Luke.

The _Tyranny_. Which, if Raymus Antilles knew what he was talking about, was about to head off to an undisclosed location on a wild goose chase.

She had to get aboard that Star Destroyer. If she didn't, it might take her months to find out where Luke had been taken, and even if she was able to track the ship again there was no guaranteeing they wouldn't transfer Luke someplace else.

"Thank you for your help," Padmé said quietly, standing and heading for the door, "but I've just remembered that he might be aboard my ship."

"Um…alright, ma'am. If you need anything else just—"

Padmé was already gone.

* * *

Major Tbron was beginning to feel somewhat better physically, but the atmosphere on the bridge was tense with contagious excitement. It seemed that the Rebels were firmly within their grip. However, Rebels could be unpredictable and extremely creative, and everyone knew that Kale would not forgive the man who so much as gave the slightest opening to his prey on the planet below. The security drones had been deployed in full force, along with the _Tyranny'_s entire complement of starfighters, and the ship remained at general quarters and high alert.

The atmosphere had gotten especially tense in the last five minutes. That was when Agent Beta had arrived aboard the Destroyer with the news that his last report to the _Tyranny_ had been overheard by one of the Rebels, whom he had been forced to stun and take prisoner. Every officer worth his commission realized at once that the planned sting operation had been blown—and no one had understood this fact more quickly than Kale, who had shot the agent within seconds. One blast straight through the eyes with his personal sidearm. That was what they were whispering, anyway. Doubtless there would soon be further morbid details.

Tbron swallowed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Of course, the victim had had the misfortune to be an undercover agent. It was only too easy to make someone like that vanish; there probably wasn't any record that Beta existed, anyway. Probably Kale wouldn't turn that blaster on one of the regular Navy officers.

Probably.

Anyway, the kid had been locked down in the detention block and a squad of stormtroopers had already been dispatched to the Kaadara Grande, hoping to corner the adult Rebel before she realized the kid was missing. It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes, and it was likely that she still hadn't discovered the truth. Even if the troopers were too late, there was still only one way out of the star system, and that was by ship. Therefore it behooved the deployed starfighter pilots and the ComScan department to be extremely vigilant, so as not to make an even greater blunder than Beta had by letting the Rebel escape the system.

"Craft departing planet, sir," an ensign to his left reported. Tbron glanced at his display. The ship couldn't have been in range of the sensors for more than two seconds. He eyed the ensign, who twitched nervously.

Tbron watched him for one more morbidly amused moment before turning back to his station and expertly keying on his broadcast systems.

"Unidentified craft, this is His Majesty's Star Destroyer _Tyranny_. This system is under security lockdown. Please stand by for tractor beam acquisition and prepare for boarding and inspection."

"Affirmative, _Tyranny_," a female voice replied. "Standing by."

Tbron felt a wash of relief as the small nondescript yacht sailed sedately into the tractor beam, without so much as hinting at any evasive maneuvers. The tractor beam crew towed the little ship into the inspection hangar as Tbron switched over to the shipboard com system. "Hangar Twelve, civilian ship incoming for inspection."

"Copy that, sir," somebody agreed on the other end. "Boarding team standing by."

* * *

Padmé watched with an absurd sense of calm as the cavernous mouth of the Star Destroyer's hangar swallowed her little yacht whole. It didn't bother her nearly as much as it should have that she was walking into a death trap. She'd have to worry about developing an escape plan later. First priority was getting Luke back in eyesight.

Which was not to say she hadn't taken a few precautions. She had slipped in her blue contact lenses, applied prosthetic fingerprints to her hands, and injected her bloodstream with a DNA mask. The chemicals would deteriorate after a while, but hopefully she would be able to convince them that she was, in fact, Ryra Dyelin. Her false identity wouldn't stand up to a thorough investigation, but it might buy her enough time to develop an escape plan.

She certainly hoped so. It was the only way she could save Luke. Their tests would undoubtedly reveal her son's Force sensitivity in very short order—as good as a death sentence in a post-Order 66 galaxy.

_You Sith-spawned scum-suckers won't kill my son unless it's over my rotting corpse_, she thought, before starting at the uncharacteristic viciousness of her own thoughts.

A gentle thud reverberated through the ship's frame, followed by an alarming creak. Padmé found she was still able to spare an annoyed thought for her ship's chronically faulty landing struts. But it was a ridiculous thing to waste attention on, so she shoved it aside, stood, and walked to the ramp. With a last, deep breath—_Mom I'm sorry love you Sola Ryoo Pooja Anakin's blue eyes winking breeze in the meadows of Varykino I miss you Ani I miss you_—she hit the _deploy_ button and walked down into the knot of stormtroopers.

She stopped in front of the uniformed lieutenant at their head and handed him her blaster. "I believe you gentlemen are looking for me?"

* * *

"Ryra Dyelin, you say?" Kale's eyes were guardedly optimistic as Tbron handed him the preliminary report from the inspection team.

"That's the name she's given, at any rate," the major said. "Obviously, we've not been able to confirm that yet, but Intelligence is working on it now." He cleared his throat. "She claims, of course, it's all a mistake."

Kale snorted. "Of course she does." He flipped the dossier shut and glared up at the major. "And she just flew right to us?"

Tbron shrugged helplessly. "She did, sir."

Kale scowled and pulled the report out again, rereading it for what had to be the fifth time. It wasn't as though there was much on the sheet of flimsy, certainly not whatever answers the captain was seeking. "I don't like it, Major."

Tbron held up both hands. "I don't understand it either, sir. But she matches the description we received from our agents and planetary surveillance indicated that she did depart from the Kaadara Grande. Her ship is recorded as arriving in system earlier today and seems to have cleared security without any difficulty."

Kale slapped the dossier closed again and paced around the tiny confines of the turbolift they were currently riding to Hangar Twelve. "Did she say why she came?"

"She claims to be looking for her son."

"The boy."

"Presumably, sir."

Kale rapped the cover of the dossier impatiently with his regulation-trimmed fingernails. "He must really be her son," he surmised. "I suppose that maternal instinct might be enough to override survival instinct." He made it sound like a bewildering theory of hyperphysics beyond the comprehension of any but the nuttiest academic.

Tbron wondered, for one fleeting second of self-indulgence, whether the captain had ever actually had a mother himself. Doubtful. Kale had probably sprung fully-malformed out of the same primordial cesspool of inhumanity as Darth Vader himself.

"It's the only explanation I can see, sir," he said aloud.

Fortunately the turbolift doors opened at that point and he didn't have to try to carry the conversation any further. A few turns down the corridors brought them to the interrogation office of Hangar Twelve. Stepping in, they found the inspection squad officer glaring down a tiny brunette woman standing calmly on the other side of the desk with her hands clasped loosely in front of her. She glanced up at the new arrivals and immediately focused on Kale, which proved she knew more than most women about military insignia.

"Captain," she said, stepping forward gracefully and offering one hand.

Kale was clearly taken off balance. His hand jerked out automatically to shake hers, then pulled back, and he ended with an awkwardly delayed nod.

Tbron watched with interest. It was the first time he'd had opportunity to meet a Rebel in person. She wasn't what he'd been expecting. This felt more like a diplomatic appointment than an interrogation of a prisoner.

"State your name," Kale barked.

"Dyelin, Captain. Ryra Dyelin, from Alderaan. There's been a misunderstanding, sir, my son is—"

"Is that so?" The captain had taken the chair on the other side of the desk, and seemed more sure of himself with the prisoner standing before him, bookended by stormtroopers with blasters trained.

"That's so," she said, with just a note of defiance.

"What is your business in system, Ms. Dyelin?"

"I'm here on vacation with my son—if you please, Captain, I would very much like to see him, he must be terrified—"

"Ah, yes, sunning on the beach, wining and dining—maybe an illicit arms deal or two thrown in on the side?" Kale leaned back in the seat with a cruel and very entertained smile.

To her credit, the self-proclaimed Ryra Dyelin didn't crumble at the accusation. "I take it, Captain, that you're referring to the scientists from Incom I met for dinner."

"I certainly am."

"I can see why it would appear suspicious to you," the woman said, "but Vetros and I are old university friends. I merely took the chance to catch up with him. It's been some time since I saw him—Captain, I must request that you let me see my—"

"Oh, I understand indeed, Ms. Dyelin," the captain said through a shark's smile. "In fact, I suspect I understand more than you. Pray tell why your, ah, university friend saw fit to bring two of his colleagues with him? Perhaps they're also your friends?"

"No, they're not. Vetros gave me to understand that workers at the Incom facility are not permitted to leave the premises without a coworker. Security reasons, I believe."

"Very good, Ms. Dyelin," Kale laughed, leaned forward. "Very good. You've thought this out quite thoroughly."

She arranged a mildly curious expression on her delicate features. "I'm afraid you've lost me, Captain. I only want to see my son—"

"Don't worry, Ms. Dyelin. I won't be losing you. And I'm sure you'll see your son very soon." Kale's lips curved into a predacious leer. "Now. Why don't you tell me about this ship you arranged to buy from the Incom facility?"

"I've been on the market for a new ship. Mine is practically falling apart." She waved a hand at the viewport of the interrogation room, through which one could see the captured yacht out in the hangar proper, perched perilously on badly warped landing struts. As Tbron watched, the hulk creaked dangerously to one side. There was certainly no denying that the woman was in need of a new starcraft. "I've been trying to get it fixed, but the problem keeps recurring."

"And just what made you think you could buy experimental starcraft from a military research and development corporation?" Kale's voice cracked like a whiplash.

The woman blinked. "Well, I wasn't planning on it. Vetros mentioned it. I assumed he would know. He works there, after all. I assure you I didn't mean to cause any trouble. If I've done anything wrong it was trusting an old friend a bit more than I should have."

She sounded a tad bitter. Kale only smiled more widely. "Yes. I would certainly say that you trust your friend Vetros far too much." He leaned forward. "You see, Ms. Dyelin, your friend Vetros is an Imperial informant planted within Incom to spot dissident scientists."

She blinked, startled. "Captain, that's—"

"As a matter of fact," Kale continued, savoring every word, "at this precise moment your friend Vetros is escorting your two fellow conspirators to an Imperial detention center on planet to be interrogated. So you see, Ms. Dyelin, your story is very tight…except for the fact that you've never seen our agent Vetros before in your life." With a smile of intense pleasure, he motioned for the two stormtroopers, who stepped forward and snapped the woman's hands in binders.

The woman remained silent, but Tbron felt a slow chill down his spine at the grim determination in her grayish-blue eyes. "Captain, you're making a mistake. Please. I need to see my son."

Kale was quite accomplished when it came to handling prisoners. He didn't bother with looking at her now. He merely pulled out the dossier and flipped it open to peruse the information, jotting down some new notes, and answered without budging his eyes from the desktop. "Oh, we'll take you to see your son," he agreed amiably. "It'll take a while to check the identity you gave us." He glanced up at the stormtroopers. "Gentlemen, why don't you take Ms. Dyelin to her son's cell until we're ready to commence the interrogation?"

The glare the woman gave Kale made Tbron's blood run cold.

* * *

It was no more than Padmé had expected, but her heart still clenched tightly at the thought of Luke locked up in an Imperial detention block, lost, lonely, terrified. As the stormtroopers started pushing her towards the door, she took a second to meet the captain's cruel smile with the iciest, most withering look of disgust in her repertoire. She was satisfied to see his eyebrows knot up angrily just before the troopers marched her into the corridor.

The walk to the detention block was long and felt much longer. She hadn't really expected she would be able to talk her way out; unfortunately, "Vetros" had been the only name she had for any of the scientists. It had been a big risk using the name of the Imperial spy, but there had been a chance that the captain wouldn't know precisely who had been who. The Imperial Intelligence Agency liked to do things very cloak-and-dagger.

Well, the gamble hadn't paid off. So be it. At least she'd had the opportunity to take the measure of the captain. For a woman who'd cut her manipulative teeth wheeling and dealing in the Galactic Senate, Kale was easy prey. So long as she made him believe that putting her in a cell with Luke temporarily was the cruelest thing he could do to her, his predictably malicious nature would see it done.

Of course, the actual fact was that it _would_ be cruel. But at least she would know if Luke was alright. She would never forgive herself if he wasn't.

_Oh, sweetheart, please be alright…_

* * *

Luke, as it turned out, never even had a chance to be lost, lonely or terrified. When the stormtroopers shoved Padmé into the cramped durasteel cube, he was there, curled up peacefully on one corner of the bench, clothes and hair and face grubby with sand, apparently asleep. She rushed over, gasping his name in relief, and shook his shoulder awkwardly with her bound hands, but he didn't stir. They must have stunned him. Her maternal wrath was instantaneous. What had the idiots been thinking? Shooting a six-year-old with a full-power stun blast! Who _knew_ what kinds of complications they might have—!

Fortunately, Luke did not leave her in suspense for long. She had only been brushing the sand off of him for a few frantic minutes before he gave an enormous yawn and blinked. She leaned over him anxiously.

"Luke? Can you hear me? Are you all right?"

Luke blinked some more. "Mommy?" he mumbled. Then his eyes snapped alert. "Mommy! Mommy! There's a bad man tryin' to get you, Mommy!"

Padmé laughed bitterly, rubbing her hair away with both hands. "You don't say."

"I know you said I hadda stay in the room and I _tried_, Mommy, but—"

"Oh, Luke," she cried, "it's not your fault—"

"—I just _knew_ there was a bad man who wanted to getcha so I hadda go find him!" Luke concluded.

Padmé's hands jerked down. "You _what_?"

"I hadda go find him," Luke repeated, shamefacedly.

Padmé stared at him for a few seconds before sinking back against the wall with a groan. "Luke, I _told_ you to stay in the—"

"But you didn' know there was a bad man!" Luke pleaded. "You didn' know, cause you're not like me and Obi-Wan, so I hadda find him an' tell you so he didn' get you! An' I hadda go out on the beach and the water a'most ate me and the bad man was gonna catch us in a trap like maybe with blood-sucking bugs or som'thin' an' I tried to run away but then I stopped breathin' an' then I got 'im in the eyes with the shampoo but he shot me with som'thin' and then I just woke up!" He paused for air, thereby getting a chance to actually look around. "Where's this, Mommy?"

Padmé groaned again. It was going to be a long, hard haul before she and Luke got out of this place.

Whether the interrogators came or not.

* * *

"Well, gentlemen," Kale said with something alarmingly close to cheer, "all's well that ends well, eh?"

The collected officers in the conference room could only nod in titanic relief. They might have had a fiasco on their hands after the spectacular screw-up by Agent Beta, but as it turned out the Rebels had fallen into their hands neatly as you please, the near arms deal had been chopped off at the knees, and the X-wing prototypes were safe and sound—and there'd only been one casualty, whom none of the present company had known anyway. The alert had been ended, security requirements had returned to their previous level, and the prisoners were safely locked away. All was well aboard the Star Destroyer _Tyranny_.

Of course, the peace and quiet were a fragile and fleeting state of affairs. Kale and his officers hadn't even got past reporting on the absurdly easy capture of the adult Rebel when Major Tbron interrupted them, wearing his portable com headset and a grim expression.

"Sorry to disturb you, Captain, but we've got reports that a Rebel force is attacking the Kuat Drive Yards. Captain Danchi is calling for reinforcements."

The conference room erupted in pandemonium. Although the _Tyranny_ was based out of Bal'alen because it was the most central system in the sector, the really important sector was about an hour's hyperspace jump away—Kuat, home to the Kuat Drive Yards, the largest military shipbuilding corporation in the galaxy, source of the Empire's TIE fighters, Star Destroyers, and every other type of starcraft in between. The shipyards ringing the planet were chock full of infant warships, worth trillions of credits—and as heavily defended as sitting ducks. No shields, little to no engine capacity, inoperational weaponry, uncrewed…and the _Tyranny_, which constituted half of the planet's mobile defenses, wasn't there to protect any of it.

Even given Lord Vader's wishes, there was only one thing a responsible captain could do.

"Navigation, prepare to jump to the Kuat system," Kale ordered. "Sound the alert to general quarters and recall our starfighters! At once!"

* * *

With a flash of blue, the _Tyranny_ vanished into hyperspace. Silence reigned serene around the dusty orb of Fresia, interrupted by nothing but pinprick stars and the lazily gliding form of an occasional security drone. It was beautiful, peaceful, and would have prompted an observer to reflect upon the eternity and infinity of the universe.

It lasted five minutes.

The four Corellian corvettes arrived within one second of each other and plowed towards the field of security drones without hesitation. The drones were not blind. Their sensors charted the newcomers and recorded challenges were duly sent while weapons were charged to the ready.

The computers aboard were not terribly intelligent. They could not stop and reflect on the fact that the Imperial Navy did not use the CR-90 corvette. Neither could they guess that the landing codes transmitted to them had been quietly stolen from an Imperial uplink station on Wayland a week ago by a crafty Rebel undercover agent. All they knew was that the codes checked. Had Kale left Yadassa and his squad of pilots behind to maintain surveillance, it might have been different.

As it was, the corvettes, together with their complements of Z-95 starfighters, sailed down in Fresian atmosphere completely unimpeded.

Aboard the _Equality_, Captain Raymus Antilles grinned ferociously.

* * *

tbc...


	17. Open Fire

A/N: I've finished breaking the rest of the story into chapter-size chunks. There are seven installments left, counting this one—six chapters and an epilogue. Some chapters will be longer than others, depending on where I thought the breaks could be put to greatest effect. This chapter is one of the longer ones. Enjoy!

* * *

The bridge of the _Exactor_ was a model of efficiency. It would not have dared to be anything else. Not with Lord Vader aboard.

Overall, Lord Vader was fairly satisfied with the way his crew performed. Unlike Kale, he did not go looking for excuses to punish his underlings—they usually produced quite a sufficient number of deserving victims without any interference from him, and he was firmly consumed with either running the Navy or rooting out yet another elusive Jedi in any case. Still, a little intimidation went a long way, so he made a point of stalking the bridge at least once every standard daily cycle. Not only did his mere presence renew his officers' dread of him and their determination not to fail him, but he had the opportunity to soak in the deliciously cold throbs of fear.

He was there on the bridge, staring out the viewport and attempting to make his emotions as icy a vacuum as the space surrounding the _Exactor_ when a flurry of excited activity erupted behind him, breaking his concentration. He turned in time to see Major Barvolin rush up to him from the communications station.

"My lord, Rebel forces are attacking the Kuat shipyards. The senior officer in system is calling for reinforcements."

Vader dismissed his momentary annoyance and followed the enthusiastic major back to the com station. "They are attacking with sufficient force to overwhelm two _Imperial_-class Destroyers?"

"One, sir, the _Imperator_, under Captain Danchi. The _Tyranny_ is in Fre'ji space."

"What of the _Accuser_?"

"The _Accuser_ suffered a hyperdrive malfunction and has not yet arrived at Kuat to replace the _Tyranny_. They're still undergoing repairs at Corellia."

Vader nodded brusquely. A quick scan of his mental galactic map told him that, other than the _Tyranny_, his ship was the only Imperial dreadnought close enough to Kuat to make a difference. "Transmit a response to Captain Danchi. We will be there to assist him shortly."

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

Lieutenant Sannori, commander of the Imperial garrison at the Incom plant, had not been having a very good evening. The fiasco with the Rebels and the dissident Incom scientists had developed a brand new twist following the _Tyranny'_s departure—Agent Alpha and the two Incom scientists had vanished into thin air. Sannori was extremely preoccupied with finding the missing agent and Rebel conspirators—

—Right up until both of his outer-perimeter turbolaser stations exploded.

"Sir!" yelped his sensor tech. "Enemy aircraft approachin—"

That was the most significant response anybody in the garrison could make before a precisely aimed concussion missile from a Z-95 Headhunter vaporized them all.

* * *

"Some ship," L'Hanna snarled.

"It's got a hyperdrive and two cannons," Aresh told her coolly. "What more do you need?"

L'Hanna secretly would have been happy with a broke-down rat-infested YT-1000, so long as it could get her several lightyears away from Fresia, but she didn't care to look nervous in front of Aresh, so she snorted with disdain. The unprepossessing freighter Aresh planned to fly out of system was squirreled away beneath overhanging pseudo-palm trees on a particularly abandoned island in the far north of the Balat Archipelago. From the amount of gritty sand sticking to its plain gray hull, it appeared to have been there for quite some time. Aresh brought the speeder to a halt a few meters from the ship and L'Hanna didn't waste a minute bolting out. She didn't think she could stand to smell the blood on the air for another second.

Aresh stayed in the craft for a few minutes before jumping out. As soon as he did, the speeder swung around and took off across the ocean at full speed.

"Put it on autopilot," he grunted. "It'll ditch a couple of klicks out and sink like a rock. Come on, we're running short on time." He punched a code into the pad and rushed her up the boarding ramp before it had even finished extending. Once they were in the cockpit he powered up the scanners. L'Hanna watched the displays anxiously, every sense straining to catch the first blip on the screen that would prove the Imperials were on their tail.

The first thing she noticed was that one very big blip was missing.

"Aresh," she said slowly, "the Star Destroyer is gone."

He immediately forgot about revving the sublight engines. "What?"

She pointed to the long-range scanner display. He blinked. "You're right."

She glared at him. What, did he think she'd never seen a scanner readout before? She worked in military research and development!

"Four smaller ships bound for the planet," she added testily, pointing to a tightly arranged series of blips blinking closer and closer to Fresia. "No sign of starfighters—"

"Damn," Aresh murmured, admiring the display screen. "I don't know who she is, but she does quick work."

"She? What she?"

Aresh didn't bother explaining. "Strap in, Dr. Ve-Kiis. I think we ought to join the party."

"You said we were getting out of system as fast as possible!" she screeched.

"Slight change of plans," he told her, grinning fiercely. "You know how to operate a tri-laser cannon?"

She gaped at him and finally nodded, mute. From black market arms dealer, through Imperial fugitive, all the way to guerrilla soldier in one day flat.

_What the nine hells happened to my life?_

* * *

The operation could certainly have been going worse. Raymus Antilles leaned thoughtfully against one arm of the _Equality_'s command chair, regarding the blossoming firefight over the Incom complex. He and his four corvettes had had absolutely no trouble entering the system, thanks to the excellent distraction they'd been able to arrange for the _Tyranny _in Kuat. As a result the Imperial garrison planetside had no warning when they blasted out the perimeter defense turrets. They had even bombed the outpost garrison HQ before anyone inside could make more than a peep, which threw the rest of the defense forces into disarray.

Yes, things could have gone much worse.

On the other hand, if things continued as they were right _now_, Raymus was going to have trouble wringing a victory out of this situation. Most of the TIEs had gotten off the ground before the corvettes were able to strafe the hangars. Their resultant dogfight with Raymus' much-inferior Z-95s reminded all present just how badly the Rebel movements needed those X-wing prototypes they'd come to get.

What was worse, the Incom compound was equipped with concealed anti-aircraft turrets powerful enough to punch straight through the shields of the corvettes. The _Audacity _had attempted a landing within the compound and nearly been vaporized for its trouble. The corvettes were forced to stand off and try to target the turrets, but none of their guns were built for precision firing—and besides, they ran the risk of damaging the prototypes with such heavy bombardment. Knocking out those turrets to facilitate a landing was a job the starfighters would have to handle, and the Z-95 pilots could barely manage to keep up with the harrying TIEs as it was.

Raymus and all the rest of the captains had been conferencing back and forth anxiously, but so far the best anyone could do was help swat TIEs as much as possible and hope that there would be a few Z-95s left to pinpoint the compound turrets. It was not a popular plan—slow, clumsy, and a death sentence to nearly every pilot they had—but without extra firepower there didn't seem to be anything Raymus could—

"Captain!" His com officer sat up sharply with excitement. "Incoming ship transmitting Code Bravo-Zulu-Niner-Five!"

Everyone on the cramped bridge of the _Equality _perked up and a sizzle of electricity crackled in the air. Code BZ-95 meant that an armed friend was on its way. "Patch them over to me," Raymus ordered.

Every ear strained as a strange voice spoke up on the captain's console. "Captain? This is Bravo-Zulu-Niner-Five. We've got a torpedo launcher and a couple of cannons. Any way we can be of assistance?"

Cheers broke out. Raymus grinned ear-to-ear. "Bravo-Zulu, I believe we have a job for you."

* * *

"Coming out of hyperspace…_now_." The _Tyranny_'s navigator was completely focused on the daunting task of completing the hyperspace maneuvers of a capital ship, and so was the only officer on the bridge not paying attention to the sensor readouts. Everyone else was gaping at the screens as ComScan officers kept detecting starcraft after enemy starcraft—hundreds of starfighters, a bevy of corvettes, and even a few dreadnoughts of Mon Calamari build. Then messages began pouring in from the _Imperator_, lists of damages and casualties sustained. Faces started to pale when mention was made that several of the rebel squadrons had diverted into the shipyard and blown up three half-finished Destroyers. They became white when Captain Danchi told them that his starboard engine was failing, along with the bridge shields.

"Full speed toward the _Imperator_," Kale ordered hoarsely above the ringing klaxons. "Redline the sublight drives—I want all gunners standing by, send orders to open fire as soon as we're within maximum range. Target those Mon Cal cruisers first. Transmit orders to Yadassa—scramble all the starfighters and deploy at maximum speed as soon as we're—"

That was when the _Imperator_'s bridge exploded.

* * *

"Coming out of hyperspace…_now_." Vader braced himself as the _Exactor _soared out of the twisting light tunnel into Kuati space. Having arrived from the opposite direction as the _Tyranny_, his own navigator had been able to plot their exit point far more precisely. The _Exactor _dropped into real space within optimum firing range of the _Imperator_'s last reported position.

Except there was nothing left of _Imperator _to greet.

ComScan officers were shouting out numbers of the enemy ships that were now on a convergent course with his own ship, and then someone reported that there was a Destroyer approaching on a slingshot orbital path. For a split second of optimism Vader wondered whether that was the _Imperator_. Then ComScan began picking up free-floating debris on its scanners, including chunks far too massive to have come from anything but the absent Star Destroyer.

Looking at the number and size of the attacking ships and the direction from which the other Destroyer was approaching, it was clear that Danchi had been overwhelmed long before Kale and the _Tyranny_ could get within range.

"Captain," Vader snarled at the appropriate officer, "open fire."

They picked off one ailing corvette before the rest of the Rebel ships were upon them. His TIEs could not deploy fast enough into the swarm of snub fighters the Rebels had managed to scrape together—only the fact that the enemy was trapped in inferior Z-95s enabled his pilots to survive at all. Meanwhile the capital ships were weaving around the shots of the _Exactor_'s heavy cannons and firing in sequenced waves at the Destroyer's weakest points.

"Where'd this come from?" his captain wondered, looking a little dazed.

Vader found himself wondering the same thing. However ragtag the collection of opposing warships might look, they exhibited a degree of coordination far beyond regular Rebel hit-and-run tactics—not to mention the sheer number of them. Nothing Imperial Intelligence had supplied had suggested that the Rebels had an operative squadron of such strength.

More pertinently, the _Imperator_ had the ignominious distinction of being the first capital ship destroyed by any Rebel attack.

Something plunged in his stomach. In a mere hour, the rebel forces had ceased to be a minor policing issue and had become a war threat. Where before there had been nothing but guerrilla blundering, now there was strategy, coordination, discipline. Dark Side only knew what might happen if a rebel cell with such military resources were to seize the X-wing prototypes.

Darth Vader was extremely displeased, and not even the first in-range shots from the _Tyranny_ made him feel any better. "Hammer the capital ships while I see to the vermin," he hissed at his captain, and stalked from the bridge towards his personal hangar and starfighter.

Between the two Destroyers, they would stamp out this infestation soon enough. And then—then somebody would have hell to pay for not warning him of this sooner. He was not particular about whom.

* * *

L'Hanna had always faintly dreamed of manning the weaponry she so ably designed for the Imperial Navy. If the cannons on Aresh's dilapidated freighter weren't quite cutting-edge, they nonetheless packed a satisfactory punch every time she pulled the trigger.

And just to make things even better, she turned out to be a very excellent shot.

"On your left, Doctor," Aresh warned her.

"I see it," she said grimly, spotting a flash of fire as one of the last remaining turrets fired at them. From the co-pilot's console, she swiveled the port cannon joystick and opened up as Aresh swung the freighter in a strafing pass. The turret and several meters of permacrete on either side of it exploded into a rain of debris.

"Nice," Aresh noted. He toggled to the corvettes' com frequency. "That's nearly all of them, Captain," he announced. "You can start landing on the north side. We'll take care of these last two on the south and head up to join your starfighters."

"Much appreciated," the captain of one of the Rebel corvettes answered. "Anything we can do for you?"

"Rendezvous coordinates would be nice."

"Can't risk transmitting those to you, but we can tractor your ship to our hull and take you along for the jump."

Aresh muted the pickup as the freighter looped back towards the southern end of the complex. "Well, Doctor," he mused as they lined up for an attack run on the second-to-last turret, "how d'you like the Rebellion so far?"

She twisted her lips in a sharp grin and pumped an entire Tibanna gas cartridge's worth of laser cannon fire into the turret. "This part? Very much."

* * *

Thanks to the fortuitous arrival of the freighter, Raymus was soon supervising the landing of the _Emancipator _within the compound and listening to the strike teams as they penetrated the compound. The troopers within were scattered, reliant on high-tech security barriers to protect. But the passcodes and directions provided by Padmé worked as perfectly as anyone could have imagined. The strike team sailed straight through, and the next thing Raymus knew his bridge was sending up a spirited cheer as four beautiful, shining, _new_ T-65 prototype starfighters lifted up into the Fresian atmosphere and went straight to work on what was left of the TIE fighters.

It was hardly even a fight. Perhaps in space the Imperials would have stood a better chance, although there were only five of them against seven Headhunters, one freighter, and the four prototypes. In the atmosphere, the aerodynamic design of the T-65s gave them such an advantage in speed and agility that one of them could have blown away an entire squadron of TIEs.

Then, like icing on the ryshcate, Strike Team Two reported that the computer codes Padmé had provided gave them high-level access. After making two copy chips, Raymus could order all of Incom's files on the T-65 erased. None of them was so naïve as to think that this would stop the Empire from producing the fighter, as it was almost certain the design specs were also on file at Imperial Navy Headquarters. But it sure as the nine hells gave them a huge head start. Seeing how well things were going, and knowing that the _Tyranny _was still at least an hour away even if she'd turned straight around after reaching Kuat, Raymus took the risk of ordering the teams to also download all of Incom's design blueprints. There would be a treasure trove of information that the strategists and analysts would have a field day sifting.

As the strike teams began making their way back to the _Emancipator_, Raymus ordered the starfighters back aboard, transmitted coordinates to the pilots of the X-wings, and oversaw the business of tractoring the mystery freighter to the _Equality_. The _Emancipator _had just lifted away from the ravaged remains of the Incom compound when an urgent message arrived from the captain of his fourth corvette, the _Hyaline_, which was holding target practice on the sentry drones orbiting Fresia.

"Captain Antilles, a small yacht has entered the system. They're hailing us. Shall I order them to heave to for boarding?"

Antilles clamped his lips together, thinking. Earlier, he might have been worried that the yacht would jump back into hyperspace and summon Imperial reinforcements—but his task force was five minutes from departure, and they had everything they'd come for and more. Perhaps this was just an innocent civilian that they could persuade to go elsewhere. "Patch them through to me," he ordered instead. "Keep them in your sights, _Hyaline_."

This time, he took the call on his headset.

* * *

When the borrowed ship dropped back into real space, Obi-Wan only barely managed to jerk the controls fast enough to avoid the large chunk of debris mysteriously floating in his path. Engine thrusters and his own body shrieked in protest at the wild plunging turn, and it was all so distracting that he nearly ran into another, somewhat smaller chunk. He had to evade a few more chunks and a fine spray of particle metal before he was clear of the obstruction and could take stock of what was going on.

Judging from the figures on the scan readouts, he had most likely encountered the remnants of a destroyed sentry drone. There were dozens of them scattered around the planet. Several had begun demanding passcodes from him; he shunted full power to the shields and looped away, hopefully out of their range, in order to assess his options. As he watched, a drone spontaneously exploded, and then another not far from it.

There was a rather large ship positioned behind the screen of drones, and it appeared to be blasting them out of its way. This and another glance at the readouts were enough to convince him that whoever these pyromaniacs were, they weren't Imperials.

Generally speaking, Obi-Wan felt he was probably safe with anybody who enjoyed aggravating the Empire. Besides, the only threat he sensed was from the drones. He swung cautiously back toward the planet and transmitted a standard hail. It was a few moments before someone answered him.

"Please state your name and business in Fresia," the brisk voice of Raymus Antilles demanded.

Obi-Wan leaned forward in relief. If the Rebels had been able to raid the facility already, that meant everything must have gone well for Padmé. Perhaps she was even on her way back to Desbar now. "Is this Raymus Antilles?" he asked.

There was a surprised pause. "The line is secure. Who is this?"

"This is Obi-Wan—"

"Master Kenobi! Might I ask what you're doing in Fresia?"

"It's a long story," Obi-Wan said wryly. Even if it hadn't been a matter of simple safety, he had no wish to relate to Antilles exactly how a six-year-old boy had bested a war-proven Jedi Master. "Is"—he racked his brain for the right pseudonym—"Ryra with you?"

There was a silence. "She's not. I tried to raise her com when we arrived. Her ship must not be in system."

"Have you contacted her recently?"

"She transmitted us the information not long ago." Raymus paused for a second. "She did say that they were on to her, by which I assume she meant the Empire knew something was up. She may have made it out of system."

"She _may _have?" Obi-Wan's reply came out much more tersely than usual. He did not like the word _may_, not after thirteen years' acquaintance with Anakin Skywalker.

"I don't know, Master Kenobi. As I said, I can't raise her com."

Obi-Wan did not like the sound of this at all. "If the Empire had caught her, I assume she would be at the local garrison?"

"Unlikely," said Raymus, who decided not to mention the disturbing fact that they had lobbed a concussion missile into said garrison. "Odds are she would have been sent up to the _Tyranny_ before it left, if she really was caught."

Obi-Wan decided to put his faith in the ugly sensation crawling in his stomach, rather than in flimsy hope. "Where is the _Tyranny _now?"

"We arranged a distraction for them at the Kuat Drive Yards," Raymus informed him. Obi-Wan could hear the satisfied grin. "They should have just arrived there."

"Thank you, and good luck to all of you, I'm on my way, if you don't hear from me in three standard days send a message to Bail," Obi-Wan said in a rush. His left hand was already punching the new coordinates into the navicomp.

* * *

No number of exploded Rebel ships could assuage the apoplectic fury of Kale. But for once the rest of the ship was on the captain's wavelength, having been incited to outrage by the spectacular fireball that, a few nanoseconds previously, had been the _Imperator_. They tore into the enemy mercilessly, and the rates of fire did not abate even when another Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace to assist them. Aside from a quick conversation between the captains to ascertain who had greater seniority, the two Imperial warships were too busy blasting Rebel scum into the next life to bother with chitchat.

Even with two Destroyers on their hands, the Rebels put up a furious battle, far superior to anything they'd seen from resistance starcraft previously. The Mon Calamari cruisers were a particularly unpleasant nuisance, being much larger and better armed than the corvettes and a good bit faster than the Destroyers. Under cover of their fire, the even swifter corvettes were proving more pestilential than normal. Meanwhile the starfighters split away from the capital ships altogether in favor of harassing the defenseless shipyard docks, where micro-gravity and unfinished Star Destroyer frames gave the Z-95s somewhat better odds against the TIEs.

It was a full thirty minutes before the tide began to turn decisively in the Empire's favor. By that time, ComScan was showing significant damage to the driveyards. The Rebels had not put KDY out of business, not by a long shot, but they had blasted the hulks of five infant Star Destroyers beyond repair and torn up a respectable chunk of the military construction docks so badly that it would be months before any of them were serviceable. Not to mention the total destruction of two squads' worth of TIEs with their pilots and one _Imperator_ with all hands aboard.

Kale snarled with pleasure as one of the Mon Cal cruisers finally blossomed into a fireball. The Rebel starfighters were pulling out of the shipyards, the TIEs in hot pursuit, and the surviving corvettes and Mon Cal cruisers turned tail. The _Tyranny _lumbered around to give chase, closely followed by the _Exactor_, but the speedy Rebel ships seemed to zip out of effective range. It would be up to the TIEs to catch them before they could board their starfighters and escape the system.

* * *

tbc...


	18. Standing On The Knife Edge

A/N: Five installments left. Not long! This chapter is a bit shorter but I couldn't resist.

* * *

The Emperor would undoubtedly be monumentally displeased by the events that had transpired thus far in Kuat—for that matter so was Vader. But if there had to be a military incident, the warrior in him was pleased to wage the battle against such competent opponents. The Rebel pilots had no advantage in either numbers or weaponry, yet they maximized what they did have in such a way as to merit his grudging admiration. He himself had found his skills tested as the Z-95 starfighters led them a wild chase through the maze of the shipyards, weaving helter-skelter through infrastructure, construction equipment, and half-completed Star Destroyer hulks.

He felt particularly refreshed after chasing a ridiculously nimble Rebel through the interior of a Destroyer that had had its decks and compartments roughed in with durasteel beams and patchy hull plating. He suspected the enemy of having once been either a Jedi or a podracer at some point, because little else could have prepared one to twist and roll and dodge quickly enough to avoid crashing headlong into the countless obstacles that met them in every direction. He had finally nailed his adversary, but not before the agile pilot wrecked the infant Destroyer with an admirably aimed torpedo in its reactor.

A worthy opponent, he reflected in a sort of spontaneous eulogy. But not one who would live to fight another day. If he had anything to say about it, none of the Rebel attackers would.

His current quarry suddenly performed a nose dive, spiraled, and shot away from the shipyards. A quick glance at the scanner revealed that all the surviving Rebel fighters were retreating, headed for a rendezvous point with their corvette and cruiser mother ships that would be out of the Destroyer's range. "All squadrons follow them," Vader ordered, looping around after his opponent.

It was a wild race to the Rebel ships, in which the TIEs had the clear advantage. They were faster and, now that the hindrance of the shipyards' micro-gravity was behind them, they were as agile as the Headhunters. Several more explosions decorated the route, and then they were all darting after each other around the corvettes and cruisers, the TIEs dodging heavy cannon fire while the Z-95s sought desperately for enough of an opening to dash into the safety of the hangars.

"Black Squadron," Vader ordered, "concentrate your fire on the cruisers and corvettes. The rest of you, stay on the fighters."

About half the Z-95s were able to escape into their hangars. A little less than half did not. About ten of them were making no effort to dock with their mother ships, which told Vader that they had been modified and had their own hyperdrives. He ignored them in favor of the closest Mon Cal cruiser. While the rest of his squadron swept the hull with laser fire, he brought his modified fighter around and aimed for the power generator with his bank of torpedos. A younger TIE pilot cheered over the com as the cruiser suddenly erupted in explosions.

As Vader had hoped, the ship did not turn into a fireball. Its generator and a section surrounding it exploded, and the ship's running lights quickly winked out, but the rest of the craft remained intact. Now, if all went according to plan, the lifepods should begin pouring out and they would be able to take prisoners—

This idea seemed to have occurred to the Rebels as well, for no pods were launched, and a mere minute later the cruiser self-destructed with all hands presumably on board.

Vader snarled with frustration and spun around to find a target on which he could vent his fury. The last Mon Cal cruiser had loaded all of its fighters and leapt into the safety of hyperspace before anyone could do something about it, quickly followed by a pair of corvettes and a few of the remaining starfighters. Vader sped toward the nearest corvette, knowing the rest were only seconds behind. The TIEs redoubled their fire.

They landed a few more shots on the corvettes before the last of the Rebel ships surged into hyperspace.

Vader drove a massive fist into the bulkhead of his fighter. They had not only attacked the Imperial fleet successfully, but they had also _escaped_, added insult to injury.

Unfortunately, the captain responsible for Kuat—Danchi—had perished with his Destroyer and was beyond reach. He would focus his ire on the sector admiral who had done such a poor job of maintaining adequate security on such an important system. In the meantime, the Force was exerting a subtle draw, and Vader felt very much inclined to vent some of his rage on Kale. Even if the captain was not really responsible for this costly disaster—it had, after all, been none other than himself who had ordered the _Tyranny _to Fresia—he remained a satisfying target.

Besides, he ought to get an update on the situation in Fresia.

Vader adjusted his course and switched on his com. "Major Barvolin."

The _Exactor_'s com officer responded promptly. "My lord?"

"Alert the _Tyranny _to prepare for my arrival."

* * *

Firmus Piett was feeling miraculously refreshed. After sleeping for the better part of two standard days and treating himself to several of the goodies in the package his very considerate sister-in-law had sent him from Axxila, he actually thought he might still be a human being after all. In fact, he felt a bit euphoric—how many lieutenants on this ship could have served seven consecutive shifts underneath the stares of both Kale and Darth Vader without suffering a nervous breakdown? Not many, that was who. He even had a bit of a swagger in his step as he reported to the Com center.

The Devaronian flu appeared to have run its course. The consoles were mostly full of slightly haggard ensigns, all of whom were extremely busy. As Piett made his way to the supervisor he could tell that most of them were coordinating the reloading of TIE fighters—all the TIE fighters, by the sound of things. Evidently he had missed some amount of excitement.

"Ah, Piett, excellent," said the supervisor. "Head straight up to the bridge. Tbron needs some assistance. As you can see we're already undermanned down here."

Piett nodded. "I take it we've been busy?"

The supervisor barked a laugh. "You might say that. We're in Kuat, so you know."

Piett blinked. "Kuat? Lord Vader ordered us to remain in Fresia."

"Yes, so I heard, but that was before the Rebels attacked KDY."

"They _what_?" Piett could hardly believe his ears. "Where did they—I mean, how many of them were—"

"I don't know anything down here," the supervisor snapped. "Ask Tbron."

Tbron was decidedly happy to see him. He still looked exhausted from the flu, but his voice was somewhat less hoarse. "Thank the goddess they sent you," he grunted. "We're wrapping things up. Com Center is taking care of re-loading the fighters, I've been too swamped with calls from the _Exactor _and KDY. I've got a damages summary over there on the screen so you can keep track of things. Log in to the station. You'll have to take over for a few minutes; Kale needs me for a welcome party."

Piett blinked again. "A welcome party, sir?"

"Yes," Tbron muttered. "I just got a call from _Exactor_. Lord Vader is on his way."

As the major rushed away, Piett stared at his console and wondered what, exactly, he'd done to deserve this. He didn't have much time to wonder, though, because two seconds after logging in he was talking to a frantic KDY construction manager and had six other calls waiting.

* * *

If possible, the atmosphere aboard the _Tyranny_ reeked even more strongly of fear than it had when he'd left the ship just the other day. That, Darth Vader felt, was as it should be, following such a dire defeat as the Rebels had just handed them. Standing from the cockpit of his TIE, he could see Kale rush into the hangar with his hastily-assembled welcome party. Vader surveyed the quaking men silently for a few minutes. Unfortunately, he had no grounds for killing all of them where they stood. Given the situation, they had responded as quickly as possible and had done as much to rectify a disastrous situation as they could.

"Captain," he thundered before Kale could even begin the formal courtesies, swinging off the boarding ladder.

Kale was rather more agreeable in war mode. "Welcome, Lord Vader. If you'll permit I'd like to return to the bridge as quickly as possible."

Vader nodded his assent, grudgingly admitting that the man was as competent a battle commander as could be found in the Navy. As they appeared on the bridge, he could find nothing to fault in the performance of the crew. His gaze landed for an instant on the com lieutenant. It was the same one as before—Piett. He was handling about six conversations at once with impressive aplomb. Nonetheless he looked quite relieved by the arrival of his superior.

"Incoming message for you from the garrison on Fresia, sir," Vader heard him say before switching his attention back to Kale.

"…responded as quickly as possible," Kale was saying, "but the angle of approach prevented us from reaching Captain Danchi in time." He didn't bother apologizing, which Vader approved of since it hadn't been the man's fault.

"Your crew's performance was acceptable considering the situation," Vader told him tersely. "At least in Kuat. I have, however, gathered from Intelligence that Fresia has been a less than peaceful place."

"We had some excitement, yes," Kale admitted. "A pair of Rebel envoys attempted to negotiate an arms deal for the X-wing prototypes. We believe some dissident Incom scientists contacted them to arrange it. However, our planted intelligence teams were prepared for them."

"Then I am to understand that you have prevented any such deal."

"Better than that, my lord," Kale said with pardonable delight. "We have both the Rebel conspirators in custody aboard the ship now, and I anticipate that our Fresian ground force has secured the Incom traitors."

Vader paused. This news almost assuaged his fury over the damage the Rebels had wreaked in the shipyards. "Have you interrogated them?"

"I have not had that opportunity yet, my lord. It's a woman and a young boy, presumably her son. She gave us the name Ryra Dyelin. Intel is checking it, but I'm certain it's a pseudonym."

Vader suspected the same.

"Perhaps, my lord," Kale suggested, rubbing his hands gleefully, "you would like to do the honors yourself?"

Vader weighed the pleasure of venting his fury on the Rebel against the undesirability of letting Kale think that he was somehow doing the Dark Lord a favor. In his present mood, however, there was just no denying himself the opportunity. And then there was that subtle tugging of the Force…

"Lead the way to the detention block, Captain," he rumbled. "I will speak with the prisoners myself."

* * *

Obi-Wan was very glad that the freighter provided by Bail boasted a modified hyperdrive. He made the jump to Kuat fifteen minutes faster than the Star Destroyer had, and being a much smaller craft, he was able to emerge from hyperspace at a point far closer to the battle than the _Tyranny_ could manage. Of course, by the time he got there, the battle was nearly over. His scanners showed several TIEs mopping up the last of the resistance a few hundred thousand klicks beyond the Destroyers.

He paid them little attention, because his own senses were reporting much more troubling information.

_Vader_.

Pervasive, icy, lethal, inky, the Force signature of what had once been Anakin Skywalker was impossible to mistake. Obi-Wan wrapped himself tightly beneath the best mental shields he could manage and let just one tendril of thought out from behind to search for any sign of young Luke, praying that he would find nothing and would be able to leave the system immediately.

No such luck. There was no mistaking that bright little pinprick of light, as lively and mischievous and small as his father's was massive and foreboding.

Obi-Wan drew a deep breath and switched on the cloaking shield. Luke was aboard the closest of the Star Destroyers. Vader, meanwhile, seemed to be somewhere further away. Most likely he was out with the starfighters finishing off the Rebels. In any case he was distracted. This might be his only chance to slip aboard the Destroyer.

Confident that his cloaking shield would prevent the Destroyer from picking him up on the scanners, Obi-Wan gunned the sublight drives. This was possibly the most harebrained plan he'd ever devised, but his best chance was the aft maintenance hangar. The technical personnel had probably all been called away to the fighter bays to assist the pilots, and they would be there until the fighters were all re-loaded. If the maintenance hangar doors weren't open, he could open them with a quick stroke of the Force. Then he would land the still-invisible ship and make his way to the detention block, which was doubtless where Padmé and Luke would be.

_It might work_, he told himself optimistically.

It was better not to think about what could happen if he failed.

* * *

Luke, as predicted, was full of questions. Padmé, as predicted, soon had a headache from trying to answer them in such a way as to not betray both of them to the security cams that were probably watching their every move. Finally she told Luke to huddle with her against the wall so they could partially conceal their faces and whisper.

"Sweetheart, I need you to promise me that you will not tell anybody your real name," she whispered. "If somebody asks you, I want you to tell them that your name is Luke Dyelin. Do you understand?"

"But Aunt Beru said I'm not 'posed to lie," Luke whispered back, eyes wide.

"Usually, no," she said. "But if the stormtroopers find out that your Daddy was a Jedi, they will—they will take you away from me. Forever," she added. That would scare him enough without going into what else would certainly happen to them.

Luke's eyes went even wider with fear. "How come?"

"The Empire doesn't like Jedi," she murmured. "So you must never let them know about your Daddy, alright?"

"Are they gonna kill us?" Luke whimpered.

Padme was by nature a truthful person, but she was also a diplomat with experience on the highest rungs of intergalactic politics. One month of the Senate would teach anybody to regard truth as a tool—sometimes highly useful, but sometimes better left in the box. "No," she said firmly. "We're going to get out of here. Don't be afraid. We both have to be brave like your Daddy."

Luke nodded firmly, drawing himself up with determination. "Don't worry," he said importantly. "I'm not gonna let the bad man get you."

Padmé smiled wryly and hugged him. "Alright."

"Can I get up now?"

"No. We have to make sure they can't see our faces on the holocams."

Luke made a big O with his mouth, eyes bright with excitement. He seemed to be taking this well. Perhaps he was young enough that this seemed like one of Mynock Man's adventures, where the hero was always guaranteed to win. Padmé wished she could be so innocent. Unlike Luke, she knew just what sort of horrors might await them when the interrogators came. She kept racking her brain feverishly for an escape plan, but there seemed to be no way out. She would have to wait until somebody opened the cell door.

"Mommy?" Luke whispered after a long silence. "Mommy, somebody's coming."

Padmé felt her stomach twist. "Are you sure?" she asked slowly. Just as Luke nodded, she heard the thud of approaching boots. Then the door whished open, and Padmé gave a startled gasp as she saw who had come.

* * *

tbc...


	19. Don't Look Back

A/N: Four posts to go! This chapter is about as long as the last--but doggone it, I just couldn't resist again... :)

* * *

The subtle tug in the Force began to strengthen on the way to the detention block. Vader's interest was beginning to be piqued. The Rebel prisoners might or might not be the locus of that peculiar urging, but if they weren't there was certainly something in the detention block worth investigation.

The Dark Lord quickened his pace, paying no regard to Kale's shorter legs. The Force flickered a little more strongly—he detected a twinge of familiarity. Something—something he had not sensed since—

The two of them came to a halt at the turbolift that led straight to the detention block. While they were waiting, a very pale officer wearing commander's insignia and a Com division patch burst around the corner, thrusting a datapad at both Vader and Kale as if unsure as to which of them should be the appropriate recipient. "My lord, Captain, sirs," he got out, his hand quaking slightly. "Major Tbron ordered me to relay this to you straight away. It's a transmission from the Fresian garrison."

The curious tingling in the Force was drowned out by a surge of foreboding, accompanied by a spike of dread from Kale. One did not need to be Force-sensitive to know that whatever was on that datapad was most emphatically not good news.

Vader turned his head slowly to stare at Kale. The detested man had gone pale, and did not dare to look at the Dark Lord. "Play the message for us, Commander," Vader ordered darkly.

Kale glanced sharply at him. His throat tightened as though he desperately wanted to object. Of course, objecting to an order at this point could only entangle him more irretrievably in Vader's ill will. Powerless, the captain nodded at the commander.

So engrossing was the ensuing missive that no one noticed the turbolift arrive behind them.

* * *

"_Obi-Wan!"_

Padmé's exclamation was stuffed into a whisper but still managed to communicate an ocean of relief. She had just enough presence of mind to clap a hand over Luke's mouth before he could yell any exuberant greetings.

Impossibly, the most unexpected person in the galaxy had arrived outside their cell door. It had taken Padmé a good several seconds to recognize her old friend. That was pardonable because never in her life had she seen Obi-Wan Kenobi in anything but his gravely dignified Jedi robes. Certainly she had never seen him in the guise of an Imperial detention officer, complete with cap. The uniform did not agree with him, if the grim expression was anything to go by.

He didn't waste time with lectures. "We must hurry," he said, gesturing them out. "I've overpowered the detention guards at the front but they won't be fooled forever."

"Obi-Wan!" Luke broke in. He sounded as though the strain of whispering when he clearly wanted to yell was going to make him explode. "We got arrested! It was so cool!"

Padmé, Nubian to the marrow, was horrified by Luke's enthusiasm for law-breaking, regardless of the fact that she herself was in the midst of illegally escaping from custody. However, now was not the time for such corrections. "How did you find us?" she murmured, hustling Luke out of the cell.

"I ran into a mutual friend in Fre'ji," Obi-Wan returned. Padmé hesitated as they emerged from the corridor at the guard station. There were three guards. Obi-Wan moved forward with a commanding wave of his hand.

"I am transferring these prisoners to Lord Vader's ship," he told them. "You were notified. There is no need to clear it."

The guards nodded and repeated after him. Obi-Wan guided them quickly past the guards into the turbolift.

"That was _awesome_," Luke breathed in amazement.

Padmé's train of thought had focused in another direction entirely. She leaned towards the Jedi Master's ear and whispered, "He's not here, is he?"

Obi-Wan nodded grimly, staring at the turbolift exit as the lift hummed upward. Padmé sucked in a deep breath. "He doesn't know yet," the Jedi answered her. "The battle outside has distracted him, but that won't last forever."

The turbolift door hissed open and they started into the hall. Padmé got two whole steps before a glance to the left made her blood freeze.

_Anakin_.

No more than ten feet away. His back was to her—Force—she couldn't move—couldn't breathe—six years—Mustafar—_Anakin, you're breaking my—_

Obi-Wan didn't freeze, and that was the only thing that saved them. Faster than a vaapad he seized both their wrists and walked the other direction down the corridor, turning at the first opportunity, a little further, then turned again and rushed them into a turbolift. Padmé sank against the wall and pressed both hands to her mouth. She was shaking all over. It didn't even occur to her to wonder about Luke's deathly silence.

"My fault," Obi-Wan was saying with shocking calm. "I didn't realize he was so close."

"Mommy?" Luke whispered. He was terrified, more terrified than she'd ever seen him. She couldn't summon the energy to say a word to him.

A strange voice flooded through the spasms in her mind. _Get yourself under control! You must be calm for Luke!_

"I—I can't—" She was gasping, but at least had managed to speak.

_You must! If you continue to frighten Luke, Vader will sense you both! Breathe!_

"Mommy!"

* * *

The report was as bad as Vader and Kale had anticipated. It would have been less disturbing had there been greater detail, but the transmission had only been a few seconds long—a few gasped words to the effect that the garrison was under attack, and then, in the middle of a sentence, an ominous burst of static silence. Then nothing.

Vader remained staring at Kale for a long moment.

There had been no indication of who the enemy was or why they had attacked Fresia. Theoretically, it might have been anyone—pirates, Hutt forces, a particularly aggressive arms dealer—but considering that the attack had been perfectly timed with the Rebel assault on the Kuat shipyards, no one had any doubts as to the culprits.

A tiny part of Vader almost sympathized with Kale. He himself was amazed at the scale of the operation these Rebels had pulled off. To have two well-armed and well-trained military forces working synchronously in separate star systems, all so far under the radar as to prevent Imperial Intelligence from catching so much as a whiff—suffice it to say that this was several degrees advanced beyond anything they had come to expect from the dissidents.

None of which the Sith Lord considered a valid excuse. Particularly considering that Kale had actually arrested two Rebel operatives and had been tracking two subversive Incom scientists for months.

"What is your explanation for this, Captain?" Vader asked into the deafening silence. "I assume that you have one."

Kale, unlike his peers, did not waste time making excuses. Instead he did the one thing that might redeem him—he acted. "Commander, inform Major Tbron to activate our security drones in the system. I want to know who has entered Fresia and I want status reports from our ground operatives there in my hand five minutes ago!"

Without waiting for Vader's comments, the captain rushed down the corridor, whipping out his comlink. The Dark Lord followed, rather intrigued to see whether Kale might save himself yet. The prisoners would keep a few minutes. Much as he disliked the man, if Kale could do something to rectify the disaster, he would have proven himself a valuable asset to the Empire. That must supersede his personal preferences.

At the end of the hall—just for a moment—the flicker in the Force whispered to him. Vader paused. Something made him turn and glance back down the hall.

There was nothing there.

He dismissed the nudge in his mind. Whatever was waiting for him in the detention block would have to continue waiting. It certainly could not be more important than whatever was happening at Fresia.

* * *

Padmé drew a long, shuddering breath. Another. Another.

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

Another. Another. The pressure was easing, her mind was quieting. Another. Another. _You can do this, Padmé._

"I'm alright, Luke," she finally managed.

"No, you're not!" He was on the verge of tears. Obi-Wan's hand was running methodically over his head. Padmé saw tremendous strain in the Jedi's eyes. He was trying to keep Luke calm. Trying to keep him safe. She had to help.

"Yes, I am," she said, more strongly. "That man—he just scared me very badly. But I'm going to be alright now." She pushed herself away from the wall and gave Luke a tight hug just before the turbolift door whined open.

Luke relaxed a little. So did Obi-Wan after a longer second. "Why were you so scared of him?" Luke whimpered as they started down the next corridor.

"I'll tell you later," Padmé hedged."We need to follow Obi-Wan right now."

"Is the bad man coming to get us?" Luke pressed. He was still clenching her hand in a death grip.

"He didn't see us," Padmé said, praying that was the case. "Obi-Wan knows the way off the ship."

"But what if he sees us on the holocams?"

Padmé's marrow iced over yet again.

"I took the liberty of erasing the holocam files in the detention center," Obi-Wan told them. "And none of the cams in the halls will see us." Padmé glanced up as he demonstrated, using the Force to nudge the cams aside as they approached.

"They may still have images from when we were brought aboard," she said, voice still shaky.

Obi-Wan turned back with his first smile of the day. "I thought of that as well," he said. "Fortunately, when I arrived in system, someone answered your secure com line."

Padmé stared at him. They were now riding another turbolift, going down this time. "Who in the galaxy—"

The lift door slid open, revealing a very large and very empty hangar bay. A few TIE fighters and a shuttle were lined up to one side, all in various states of disrepair, but there was not a soul in sight.

There was, however, a rotund little blue-and-white shape trundling towards them on three wheels. It emitted a string of cheerful beeps that echoed loudly through the cavernous hangar.

Padmé dropped to one knee, threw her arms around his stout barrel body, and planted a fervently grateful kiss on Artoo-Detoo's dome.

* * *

The bridge was in a state of semi-panic when Kale and Vader arrived. Nobody seemed to know exactly what was happening except for Major Tbron and Lieutenant Piett. The latter of the two was entirely immersed in his work, tapping furiously at his console, so only Tbron could explain.

The news immediately got worse.

"The message was half an hour old when we received it," Tbron reported. The man looked pasty. "I'm—I'm not sure how it happened, sir, but it appears to have been misplaced in the queue, probably classed behind the incoming calls from KDY and the _Exactor_."

"In other words," Vader rumbled dangerously, "you did not perform your task correctly, Major."

Tbron had some backbone. "I was the only com officer on the bridge during a combat situation and was juggling priority calls from half a dozen sources, my lord. I made the best job of it I could."

"I will determine that for myself," Vader thundered. "What else do you have to report?"

"How long until we can upload information from the security drones?" Kale added.

Tbron looked a little more hopeful. "Lieutenant Piett sent the order to them as soon as we received the message," he announced.

That was well before Kale had ordered it. Vader's estimation of the lieutenant was growing by leaps and bounds.

"It'll take a few minutes but we should be getting data from them any—"

Piett suddenly tore off his headset and stood, handing the captain a flimsy. "Four corvettes and one small yacht have entered Fre'ji space since our departure, sir," he announced. "Our drones report that the corvettes transmitted the correct codes."

"They must have stolen them from an uplink station," Vader growled.

"The yacht did not have the codes but exchanged communications with one of the corvettes briefly before leaving the system," Piett continued.

Kale flipped the flimsy over. "Have the corvettes left the system?"

"Not according to the data so far, sir. Excuse me, sir, there's another burst coming." He ducked back into his chair and toggled the controls of his headset as encrypted data started rolling on his screen.

"Major Bamhar, how soon can we leave for Fresia?" Kale demanded.

The chief navigator had anticipated the question. "At least another twenty minutes, sir," he said glumly. "Assuming we stop re-boarding the TIEs. We've come nearly to the opposite side of the planet versus our point of arrival."

Kale swore softly under his breath. "Major Tbron, cease boarding of TIEs. Major Bamhar, set course for Fresia. And redline the engines!"

"You are already too late," Vader informed him icily. They were more than an hour from Fresia, and they had been delayed in receiving the first warning from their garrison. Given how well the rest of this operation had been planned, the dark lord had no doubts that the Rebel task force at Fresia would be gone even before the _Tyranny _had cleared the planet to make the hour-long jump.

"Perhaps, my lord, but our groundside forces may yet have repelled them," Kale returned tightly. "I left TIEs behind, as well as a defensive division with walkers. And the facility itself was well-armed against air attacks."

"Considering the competency they have demonstrated thus far," Vader said acidly, "I find that a remote possibility, Captain."

Kale swallowed.

* * *

"Are we taking that shuttle?" Padmé asked quizzically. It seemed to be the only ship in the hangar that could carry three people and two droids. Assuming it was operable. From the look of the open compartments, detached hull plating, cables, and scattered tools, that was far from certain.

"We're taking my ship," Obi-Wan said, and guided them across the vacant left side of the hangar. Quite unexpectedly they walked through what felt like a sheet of charged air molecules. An unpretentious little ship winked into existence.

"Astral!" Luke breathed.

"I didn't know that ship had a cloaking shield," Padmé murmured.

"I discovered it on the way to Desbar," Obi-Wan explained. "If I'd known I would have had you take this one to Fresia. But I think it's worked out for the best. They won't be able to connect us to Bail if we take this one." The ramp dropped down; they hurried aboard and into the cockpit. Threepio was already there, bemoaning their impending doom, but they were too rushed to pay him any mind. Obi-Wan plunged into the pilot's console and began flipping switches. "I assume you wiped the memory files and log on your ship?"

Padmé nodded as she strapped Luke into the navigator's seat. She hated the thought of leaving the yacht that had been as good as home for the last several years, but better to lose it than to lose Luke. Besides, this way she'd be rid of that blasted malfunctioning landing gear.

Luke interrupted them. "The engines aren't starting."

The adults glanced up. Sure enough, the lights on the console were stuck stubbornly in the red. As they watched, a diagnostic flashed up detailing the problem.

"Blast," Obi-Wan muttered. "There's something wrong with the power shaft. Artoo, go see what it is." With an alert chirp the astrodroid wheeled off at top speed. After a few tense minutes the screen filled with translated dialogue.

"He says the exhaust vent is being blocked by a chunk of debris," Obi-Wan groaned. "I must have picked it up on the way in through the battlefield. It's lodged somewhere inside. If we try to run the engines we'll overheat and implode."

"Oh, we'll never get out of here!" Threepio wailed. "We'll be melted down for scrap, disassembled, sent to the mines until our joints freeze—"

Padmé switched him off impatiently; extra stress was not needed at this point. "Can't you just pull it out with the Force?" she suggested.

"Bad idea." Obi-Wan shook his head slowly. "If I were to force it without being able to see, I might damage the insulation and we'd be in even worse shape."

Padmé groaned. "What are we going to do, then?"

Quite suddenly, a huge red klaxon set in the ceiling went off and a voice erupted from the speakers. "Alert—escaped prisoners. Alert—escaped prisoners. Alert…"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan said tightly, "but we'd better think of it fast."

* * *

tbc...


	20. Fear No Evil

A/N: Because it is Valentine's Day, and in order to prove that I do, in fact, have a heart, here is Chapter 20. :) Three to go…

* * *

Piett was not happy about his current situation—not happy at all. Being the bearer of bad news to the two most demanding and temperamental commanders in the entire Imperial fleet was not a position eagerly sought after, especially not by expendable second lieutenants.

The rest of the officers were still hopeful, but Piett knew better. This time around, somebody was going to die. He was determined that it would not be him. If he was going to make it through this alive, he needed to get himself as safely away from Vader as possible—without abandoning his post. Considering that it was his post that was bringing him into contact with Vader, this was definitely a conundrum.

And given the data that the drones had just sent him, it was a conundrum that he'd better solve quickly.

The four Rebel corvettes—apparently, CR-90s—had just left the system. Much, much worse…so had four T-65 prototypes.

Why, _why_, of all the second lieutenants in the Imperial Navy Communications Corps, must he be the one to report such an abysmal failure? Surely there must be a way to avoid this—perhaps he could get Tbron to deliver the report from the security drones. No—he could not very well order such a superior officer to play delivery boy. Tbron would take one look at the contents and doubtless order his underling to take care of it while he made himself appear as busy as possible.

It seemed there was nothing for it. Slowly Piett stood to walk to his doom—

Then the miracle occurred that saved his life. The red high-alert light went off in the middle of the com station. Tbron immediately looked up and switched his headset to the shipboard network. Piett sat back down and picked up one of his earpieces to listen—the major might need help relaying the message if it was a ship-wide alert.

"Bridge, this is Detention Block AA-7," somebody was saying on the other end. "Reporting a breakout."

Both Piett and Tbron jerked, and for an instant, divisions of rank were forgotten as they shared a glance full of dread.

"Two escaped prisoners, estimated at about ten minutes ago," the somewhat unsteady voice continued. "Be advised prisoners are one adult female, one juvenile male. Prisoners may be armed."

"Lieutenant," Tbron snapped, "call Security and tell them to start searching the security recordings for the prisoners' location and heading." He leapt out of the station and made a beeline for Kale just as the klaxons began ringing.

* * *

The Force warned him moments before the klaxons went off. Somewhere in the ship, somebody sent out a powerful burst of dread and anxiety—he could feel it seeping and spreading through the currents like blood into a stream. Vader could not mistake the source for anything but a Force-sensitive being. Such was his consternation that he momentarily forgot about Kale's unforgivable blunders. There should be no Force-sensitives here other than himself—this was an Imperial warship, every crew member would have been tested a dozens times over—

_The prisoners_. It _had _to be them. Vader cursed himself for having ignored that tug in the Force earlier, just as the communications major arrived to confirm his fears.

"The Rebels have escaped the detention block, sir."

Kale went pale with fury. "What? How?"

Tbron took an alarmed step back. "The detention officers claim that another officer arrived to transfer them. They are adamant that this transfer was authorized."

"I gave no such authorization," Kale hissed.

Tbron's response was a helpless shrug. "I don't know how they did it, sir," he protested. "But they never re-entered a detention facility."

Vader was growing more irate by the second. These Rebels were making fools of his Empire—first in Kuat, then in Fresia, and now aboard their very own ships. And this narrow-eyed insect of a human was permitting it. The two Rebel prisoners were their only link to the most devastating military operation the resistance had ever carried out, and what was more, one of them was a Force-sensitive. They could not afford to lose them.

Lieutenant Piett arrived, white but determined. "Captain, Security reports no trace of the prisoners on any of the holocams. We have no idea where they are, sir."

"Tell me, Kale," Vader snarled, "when did security protocol become so lax aboard your ship that a woman and a child can not only escape high security custody without detection, but also breach your surveillance system?"

Kale was nearly without recourse. "My lord—I—they may be in the ventilation ducts—"

"Computer central memory compromised!" cried a startled ensign from another section of the bridge. "Someone's erasing surveillance image files!"

"Enough of this," Vader spat in disgust. "Since you are incapable of managing your own ship, Captain, I will see to these Rebels myself. After that, I will see to you." He stormed from the bridge, lightsaber in hand, following the trail of that elusive presence in the Force.

* * *

Obi-Wan was just standing there in the engine room, staring thoughtfully at the ports and shafts and couplings as if mere wishing would fix the problem. Padmé wanted to scream at him, but doubted anything could be heard over the klaxons and the speakers and Artoo's shrill whistling. Luke was hiding against her side, making soft frightened sounds. Reflexively she hugged him to let him know it would be alright, though it was looking less and less like they had any chance of escape.

Obi-Wan tapped some of the keys on the diagnostic pad. Padmé did not know what response he got, but Obi-Wan seemed to find it very encouraging. He finagled the controls and opened the maintenance hatch in the ceiling that led to the main power shaft. It was tiny and square, meant to provide access to specialized repair droids, of which they had none. "Alright," he shouted to them over the racket. "I think that this shaft is just big enough for Luke to crawl in there and pull out the piece that's stuck. Do you think you can do that, Luke?"

Luke gave a slightly frightened but determined nod. "Yeah."

Padmé did not feel at all relieved at the thought of sending her son down into the cramped and unlit power shaft. This was going to take much too long for her tastes. But there was no alternative.

"Come, Luke," Obi-Wan called. "I promise you'll be just fine."

Luke edged forward, and gave a yelp as he found himself floating upwards. The fright was momentary, quickly overwhelmed by his exhilaration at actually flying. "This is fun! Does Mommy get to do it too?"

"No," Padmé said, seeing that Obi-Wan did not need anything disrupting his concentration. "Once you get to the hatch, crawl inside!"

This was no hardship for a smallish six-year-old. Luke slipped easily through the thin opening. Padmé, eyeing it closely, felt fairly confident that he hadn't hurt himself. But could he find the obstructing piece of debris in the dark?

They would soon see.

"Where is it?" Luke's muffled voice called back to them.

Obi-Wan wiped his forehead, turned to Artoo, who warbled some more while flicking through readouts. "Keep crawling forward and you should feel a small opening on your right in a few feet."

Padmé hovered nervously below the hatch, listening to the thuds and scrapes and the occasional yelp as Luke inched his way down the shaft. There apparently was not much room for maneuvering, and the pitch blackness wasn't helping matters. Every second she had to wait below was agony—their one hope of avoiding discovery was the ship's cloaking shield, and each second that passed meant their pursuit was closer to figuring out that this hangar was not as empty as it looked.

The shuffling and thudding continued and quite suddenly Luke's very smudged face appeared through the hatch. "I found it," he chirped.

"Did you get it?" Obi-Wan asked.

"It's stuck too tight," Luke said.

Padmé felt her gut lurch horribly. If Luke wasn't strong enough to dislodge the debris they would have no hope of escape via this ship.

Beside her, Obi-Wan stiffened. "Go back in and keep trying, Luke," he urged. "You must hurry!"

Padmé waited until Luke had vanished again before whispering, "Do you think we can get to the other ship?"

"With the alarms it's unlikely, and certainly not with the droids."

There could be no leaving the droids. They had no time to erase memories and Anakin would recognize them anyway; only by vaporizing them could Padmé have ensured that the Empire would be unable to trace any connections back to Luke and herself. That would be as good as murdering two friends.

"Then what—where are you going?" Obi-Wan was hurrying out of the engine room.

"First to the cockpit to tell Threepio to shoot if any stormtroopers arrive," Obi-Wan said. "And then to find a better hiding place."

"What?"

Obi-Wan turned back for one grim second. "I advise you tell Luke to be quick about it," he said flatly, "because he's coming."

Padmé's throat constricted.

* * *

The elusive presence in the Force was becoming stronger. Vader hurtled through the corridors like a hurricane, far too intent upon the hunt to notice the Imperial personnel he plastered to the bulkheads in his wake. He was beginning to notice something familiar about this presence—it was exactly like the disturbance he had noticed when leaving Fresia, the one that had originated from the yacht that had been entering the system. He could not remember its name.

Undoubtedly, these Rebels had been aboard that yacht. Perhaps the child was Force-sensitive. Still, something about the signature was nagging at him. He felt as though he ought to know who this infiltrator was, as though—

The entrance to the maintenance hangar was looming at the far end of the corridor when a second presence suddenly blossomed in the Force—and this, this was no child—no, it was powerful, definite, controlled, active, and as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice.

_Kenobi…_

Vader broke into a run.

* * *

Padmé frantically examined the diagnostics Artoo was projecting, hoping a miraculous and swift solution would present itself and becoming more aware with every second that she knew nothing about fixing engine problems. Anakin, she thought desperately, would have had this fixed in an instant—Anakin would have been laughing, telling them not to worry, that it would work out and they'd be fine—Anakin would _kill Obi-Wan, hurt Luke, he's coming, dear Force he's coming—_

"Luke, sweetheart, hurry!"

"I'm trying!" his fuzzy, frightened little voice piped back. "It's stuck too tight!"

She closed her eyes. "Do the best you can," she choked out, voice shaking from the effort of suppressing hysterical pleas.

"I am, but—uh-oh."

"What?"

Luke's silence felt as heavy as a planet on her shoulders. "The bad man's here."

* * *

tbc...


	21. Up From the Grave

A/N: Two…

* * *

When Vader entered the hangar, he found it extremely and bewilderingly empty. He slowed to a cautious walk. Whatever his eyes told him, the Force was declaring Kenobi's presence—and the Force would never lie to him. His treacherous old master was here somewhere, although Vader could no longer sense the other, fainter presence. The Jedi must be shielding one of the Rebels. Perhaps Kenobi had come to rescue the Force-sensitive child.

Vader flicked his lightsaber on. He would see to it personally that none of them ever escaped this ship, and least of all Kenobi. Vengeance had waited, simmering in hatred, for six interminable years—but no more.

Slowly he followed the silent presence. Half the hangar was filled with craft awaiting repairs; the other half was vacant but for assorted equipment and machinery along the bulkhead. His master's presence appeared to be coming from…

…Aha. That side.

* * *

"Luke, get down!" Padmé lunged upward and seized Luke by his feet, intending to pull him back, run with him for another hangar, try to find a ship to hijack, anything that would get her son out of here and as far away from Anakin as possible, but he kicked free.

"Uh-uh, he can't see us," Luke objected. "He's outside the invisi-bubble. Obi-Wan ran outside it too, I think he's hiding over on the other side where all the ships are." There was a definite note of longing in his voice and she suspected that, bad man notwithstanding, her son would love to be with Obi-Wan just so he could get a closer look at the starfighters.

"How do you know the bad man is here?" Padmé demanded.

"My head tickles and my back too," Luke said matter-of-factly, turning back to tugging at the lodged piece of debris as if this highly un-scientific explanation ought to be enough for anyone.

Padmé sucked in a huge, steadying breath. "Then you need to get that thing out of there," she managed. "I'm going to go for just a second and get a blaster. Luke, _hurry_."

* * *

"You cannot escape me, Obi-Wan," Vader thundered, prowling around the half-dismantled shuttle, lightsaber humming in the vanguard.

Unlike Mustafar, the hangar was not a terribly dramatic setting for a climactic duel between archenemies. The vast glowpanels set into the ceiling cast a stark, uniform white glare over the entire hangar, nearly eliminating all shadows and leaving little possibility of concealment. It would not be difficult to find Kenobi. Unless the man had secreted himself in the cockpit of one of these dysfunctional ships—and no warrior would ever leave himself so vulnerable—the hiding places were few.

It was a testament to the man's skill that he had not spotted the Jedi already.

Vader stalked past the cable-draped TIE undergoing repairs next to the shuttle. "Once I was but the learner," he goaded, projecting his voice throughout the cavernous hangar. "Now _I_ am the master—"

"I think that's a little presumptuous of you, Darth," Obi-Wan's voice announced—from _behind _him.

Vader spun and was furiously chagrined to discover Obi-Wan standing half within the shadow of the shuttle's tail fin, against the wall of the hangar not far from the exit. If the Jedi Master chose he could be out the door, in the turbolift, and well on his way to another hangar before Vader could do anything about it.

But it had never been in Kenobi's nature to run from a fight, and the Dark Lord doubted he had acquired the habit. He took several steps forward. Obi-Wan remained serenely motionless, lightsaber at his belt and hands empty. It was the empty hands that made Vader finally notice his old master's absurd outfit. He stood with hands clasped in front of him, and the sleeves of his robe ought to have covered them—except there was no robe. Rather he wore a detention officer's uniform, complete with cap.

Obi-Wan saw the direction of his incredulous stare and glanced up. With a wry twist of his eyebrows he removed the cap, examined it for a moment, and tossed it aside.

"I see you have been liberating my prisoners," Vader growled, flicking the tip of the lightsaber to indicate the bizarre ensemble.

"I acquired it from one of your minions," Obi-Wan remarked. "Frightfully uncomfortable. It's a wonder your officers don't all desert." He shrugged the jacket off as well and threw it atop the discarded cap, swinging his shoulders in preparation for the duel they both knew was inevitable.

"Do not think your pitiful jibes can touch me," Vader sneered. "You are insignificant compared to the power of the Dark Side of the Force."

"We are all insignificant compared to the Force," Obi-Wan corrected him mildly.

Vader came yet closer, and still Obi-Wan gave no sign of alarm. Was the old man truly so foolish as to think this would be no more than a pleasant conversation? "Some of us," he seethed, "are less insignificant than others. I have the might of the Dark Side at my command."

"The Dark Side is not stronger," Obi-Wan returned. "Only easier."

"You are a foolish old man bound by Jedi misconceptions," Vader snapped. "You may serve the Force, but the Force serves _me_."

Obi-Wan's eyes sharpened. "And yet," he said softly, "you are enslaved."

Vader exploded forward with an enraged stab of the ruby blade, aiming directly for the gut, a lethal strike. But six years had not taken the edge off Obi-Wan's speed. A humming line of blue lanced out and parried easily as the Jedi performed a swift sidestep, ducked Vader's backswing, and rolled several meters out of range. "Do not presume to tell _me _what slavery is!" Vader roared at him, following quickly, intent on pressing the attack.

Kenobi slipped into the fight with the same inimitable grace he'd always had, parrying and blocking Vader's lethal assault and anticipating feints. The glowing demonstration of defensive technique would have had Cin Drallig swooning with delight were the dead lightsaber instructor here to witness it. But no matter how Vader pressed him, the Jedi would not take the offense, nor did he even try to hold his ground. He let Vader drive him backwards in circles, apparently content to hold the defensive without making the slightest effort to end the fight.

"You seem to have grown weak, old man," he taunted. Perhaps he could rile Kenobi into a fight

Obi-Wan raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Or perhaps your understanding is incomplete," he suggested.

"I understand more than you have ever known," Vader asserted with a series of savage slashes, all of which Kenobi batted away effortlessly. Frustrated, the Dark Lord lunged, only to be rebuffed once again as the Jedi shunted the strike to his side and backpedaled away.

"Your games are foolishness," Vader raged, circling his stalling opponent. "You are too late for escape." He gestured behind them as a bevy of stormtroopers arrived at the hangar entrance, blasters primed. The squad leader wisely concluded that the Dark Lord had the situation in hand and waved his men back. "If you do not intend to fight you should have run while you had the chance."

"I intend to neither run nor fight," Kenobi said mysteriously. His blade flashed quickly to counter a swing.

Vader cut back with a swift blow angled to the neck, wondering all the while what Kenobi could mean. If he would not run, would not fight, and would not simply give himself up—what did that leave?

* * *

Luke felt more than a bit scared as he wriggled around the small space of the power shaft. The invisi-bubble-thingy didn't stop him from hearing the noises happening outside it. The buzzing and clashing and squealing coming through the exhaust valve from outside was like nothing Luke had ever heard, but it made him suspect that the bad man and Obi-Wan were fighting. And there must be a good reason that Mommy had been so horribly upset about the bad man. Luke did not want the bad man to get any of them, but _especially_ not Mommy. And that meant that no matter how tightly stuck the piece of something was, he had to yank it free.

Gritting his teeth, Luke pulled with all his might once again. Once again the chunk refused to budge, the sharp corners digging into his small hand. If only he could get both his arms into the exhaust valve he was sure he could wrench it loose—but the shaft was so small that all he could do was lie on his stomach and tug with one hand.

_Come on!_ his mind yelled at the chunk. _Get loose! I gotta—save—Mommy!!!_

Luke hauled with all the scant strength in his six-year-old arm and envisioned the chunk shooting free, the engine revving, him and Obi-Wan and Mommy soaring out into space far, far away from the bad man—

The chunk gave a mysterious shudder, and unaccountably crumbled into three pieces.

Luke gave a joyous shriek.

* * *

Padmé had just taken up a defensive position behind a bulkhead at the top of the ramp when a high-pitched screech curdled the marrow in her bones. She sprinted to the engine room, crying out Luke's name, and saw his feet dropping out of the ceiling.

"I got it!" he yelled, his voice echoing through the power shaft.

She dropped the blaster, ignoring Artoo's triumphant hoots, and grabbed his legs to help him down as best she could. They both nearly fell over, and Luke was leaving massive streaks of soot over her clothes, but he brandished several chunks of something gray with a victorious expression. Padmé swept him into a hug and kissed him directly on his grimy forehead.

"We gotta get Obi-Wan!" Luke exclaimed, wriggling free.

"You're right." She put him down, jumped up to seal the maintenance hatch shut, retrieved her blaster, and rushed him by the hand to the cockpit. "Threepio, start the engines!" She strapped Luke back into the navigator's seat and dashed for the ramp.

* * *

"You will not defeat me," Vader prophesied as the sparks flew again from their blades.

"It is not"—_feint_—"your defeat"—_slash_—"that I desire!"

Vader snapped the lightsaber at his opponent like a pointed finger. "Do you expect me to believe such hypocrisy after our last encounter?" Violent, agonizing images of Mustafar welled in his brain, fueling his virulent hatred, and he flung them all against Kenobi's mind wildly as he struck at the Jedi from the right. Both attacks were firmly rebuffed and they broke apart again, circling.

"If I told you planets were round, I doubt you would believe that either," Obi-Wan said wryly. "Truly I have failed you."

"And you shall pay the price for it," Vader snarled. He had had enough of this stalling. This was a battle to the death, not some training exercise; there would be no more discussion. Kenobi had been permitted to flap his jaws in his own wind long enough. "I will show you _exactly_ what—"

A bright, blinding burst of energy erupted from that other, heretofore invisible presence that Vader had glimpsed earlier, and both combatants froze in surprise. Kenobi recovered more quickly.

"Perhaps I will, but not today." His old master offered an abbreviated smile, and with a quick salute of his lightsaber tore away from him, sprinting towards the exact middle of the empty half of the hangar as though the deckplates scorched his feet.

Vader was so bewildered that he stood stock-still for a heartbeat before doggedly giving chase. What insanity possessed his onetime master he could not begin to fathom, but he was too exasperated with Obi-Wan's dithering and too hungry for the traitorous old man's blood to let the Jedi continue putting distance between them—

Then Obi-Wan simply winked out of existence, right in midstep.

The vigilant stormtroopers waiting at the hangar entrance jumped in surprise. But Vader howled with fury and sprinted as swiftly as the prosthetic limbs would permit—knowing already that he was too late—cursing himself for not having suspected the truth sooner—

The air gave a tremble and then, quick as you please, a small gray space yacht sat before him, right where it had been the whole time hidden beneath its cloaking shield. The engines were revving with a thunderous roar—and there was one of the escaped Rebel prisoners, the woman, tiny, brunette, halfway down the ramp, blaster in hand. She saw him and flung a hand in front of her face, dashed back into the ship. Obi-Wan was hard behind her, and the landing ramp was already drawn halfway up as the Jedi darted aboard, many seconds ahead of Vader—but the ramp was too slow and he would make it—

* * *

Luke and Threepio yelled in unison as Obi-Wan suddenly reappeared off the port side of the ship, running as though the Star Destroyer was exploding behind him. Luke cheered, and then screeched—the bad man! He was chasing Obi-Wan!

"Oh, no!" Threepio howled.

And without taking hardly any time to aim, the panicking droid hit a large red switch on the console.

* * *

Vader sensed the danger barely in time to leap aside as one of the yacht's nose cannons spat beams of lethal red energy at him. Somewhere in the din of the explosion he heard a woman's sharp scream, and a corner of his mind thought _Padmé_—but he was instantly distracted by the fact that his cloak had caught fire.

Not many things could make him panic, but fire was one of them.

By the time he'd torn free of the flaming fabric and flung it far from his person, the yacht was airborne and accelerating out of the hangar.

* * *

Piett immediately took advantage of Vader's absence. The second the door sealed behind the Sith's flagging cape, he trotted up to Kale, who was now busy chewing out the CO of Detention Block AA-7, saluted smartly, and announced in the gravest of tones, "We have an update from the security drones, sir."

"What is it?" Kale barked, whirling on him as if to attack.

Piett handed him the lethal sheet of flimsy, and felt as relieved to be rid of it as he might had it been an execution order. "The Rebel corvettes have left the system, sir, accompanied by four TX-65s."

The bridge turned as silent as the morgue. Kale's cruel gray eyes speared him like two icicles. They both knew exactly how Piett had manipulated the chain of command so that it would be Kale, and not the second lieutenant, who delivered the notice of failure to Lord Vader. What was even more unforgivable, he'd done nothing remotely wrong.

None of the bridge could have scripted a more perfect vengeance had they schemed for weeks.

On the other hand, there was always the risk that Kale would finally throw caution to the winds and murder Piett where he stood, now that Vader's condemnation was inescapable. And as the two stared each other down, and the minutes passed, most of their audience felt certain that that was exactly what was going to happen.

Once again, the escaping Rebel prisoners saved Piett. "Captain!" yelped somebody from ComScan. "Unauthorized departure from Hangar 11!"

"Track it! Tractor beam operator stand by for acquisition!" As Kale shouted frantic orders, Piett scrambled back to the safety of his station.

"Negative, Captain, she's not appearing on my scope!" the tractor beam operator reported.

"She's got a cloaking shield!" ComScan concluded.

Tbron was talking fast into his headset, ordering all TIEs to the last recorded heading of the fleeing Rebel craft, but most were in the process of re-boarding and those still in space couldn't see hide or hair of their target.

"All guns open fire!" Kale's order was an inhuman howl. Red streaks of death criss-crossed space in every direction, strafing in pattern in hopes of knocking out the Rebels' cloaking shield.

"Spread out the TIEs!" Dravka added. "They'll have to drop the cloaking shield to make the jump to hyperspace. Cover as much space volume as you can, we'll catch them then!"

* * *

When the hulking caped specter that had once been her beloved husband winked into view behind Obi-Wan, Padmé thought it was all over—six years of agony, all for nothing—but she hid her face anyway and ran for it, up the ramp, hitting the retraction control even before Obi-Wan was on the ramp.

But Anakin was running after them, closing the distance faster than the ramp would move—it was done, over, they were lost along with Anakin, all of them—

She knew it was coming a moment before Threepio fired the cannons. She screamed as the bolts of energy converged, a scream ripped from the core of her soul, a word that might have been _Anakin _but was as mutilated and mangled as her husband's body had been on Mustafar—

—kept sobbing wildly as Obi-Wan plunged past her to the cockpit—

—as the ship lurched up and leapt forward, away from the Imperial deathtrap—

Abruptly Obi-Wan was there again, pulling her to her feet, and she exploded, hammering his chest with both fists and all her strength and screaming in Nubian because she was too wild with grief to remember even a word of Basic—

"Padmé, he's alive! It's alright, he's alive!"

The words slowly penetrated her madly cartwheeling mind.

"I can sense him, he's alive!"

"You—you—sure—you're sure—don't lie to me, goddess, don't lie to me—"

"I'm not lying!" Obi-Wan tipped her head back to make her meet his eyes. "I would never lie to you, Padmé." Something cool, wetlike, and blue seemed to wash over her thoughts, and finally she began to relax. "Besides," Obi-Wan added, "do you really imagine something as minor as a droid shooting a badly aimed cannon could kill Anakin?"

She blew out a shaking breath and rubbed furiously at the tears. "I suppose not," she whimpered, trying for a smile. "I'm sorry—Obi-Wan—I don't know what it was—he tried to kill me, I know it, but I still—dear goddess, I still—"

"Love him," the Jedi supplied. "I see that."

She nodded, blinking to stem a fresh inundation of broken tears. They sliced down her cheeks, as sharp as shrapnel.

The ship gave an alarming jolt.

"We can discuss things later," Obi-Wan said tersely. "We're not out of this yet."

They hastened to the cockpit and ejected Threepio from the pilot's seat. Luke was white with fright again, and Padmé knew that it was her fault again, but they could not stop to allay his fears now.

"Begin calculating the jump while I keep us clear of these fighters," Obi-Wan ordered tightly. Padmé started on it straightaway, still having to pause and wipe at her face from time to rime in order to see. It was a difficult task with the ship junking and juking and corkscrewing all over the place. They might be invisible but they weren't immaterial, and there were a lot of lasers to dodge. Every time one struck them the TIEs swarmed towards the spot, making the chances of being hit again even more likely—

"Coordinates are set!" she cried.

"I'm dropping the cloaking shield for the jump to hyperspace," Obi-Wan responded.

The shield went down and the TIEs scented blood, shooting towards them en masse, lasers converging, their shields were going to give—

* * *

"Unauthorized craft on the scopes!" yelled the ComScan ensign. "Bearing two—one-eleven—twelve!"

"Concentrate your fire!" Kale screeched. "Tractor beam operator, stand by for acquisition! Tbron, tell the TIEs to—"

"—Already on it, sir—"

The tractor beam operator flung his headset down in disgust and frustration. "She's gone, sir. Made the jump before we could acquire a lock."

"Unauthorized craft has escaped into hyperspace," agreed ComScan miserably. "Last heading…" He began rattling off numbers and possible destinations, but no one was listening any more. If the bridge had been as silent as a morgue before, it was now as dead as a ransacked tomb.

* * *

tbc...


	22. Cleaning Out the Closet

A/N: One….

* * *

The officers had assembled in dead silence around the table in the conference room. Not a single one of them was looking forward to this discussion, because none had a single positive report to make. They all cowered mutely in their seats, staring at the table, fingers worrying at collars and dossiers, awaiting the arrival of the final and most dreaded participant in the debriefing.

Lord Vader was certainly taking his time in returning to the bridge.

Piett, personally, would be quite happy for the Dark Lord to keep them all waiting as long as he pleased. He had been the unlucky Communications man required to accompany Tbron to this debriefing, and he knew that the Captain was going to exert his full power to pin as much blame as possible on the shoulders of the lieutenant who had so adroitly passed the bad credit to him.

The conference room hatch hissed open. Vader stalked in. His cape was inexplicably absent, and his armor appeared a bit singed, but his temper was none the worse for wear. He padded slowly to the head of the table, where he remained for several agonizing moments like a silent monument. A score of ears waited, dreading what the Sith would say.

"Lieutenant Piett."

Ashen, numb, the unfortunate lieutenant met the impenetrable onyx eyeplates. "My lord?"

"Go to Hangar Four," the Sith said calmly, "and retrieve me an extra cape from my shuttle."

Piett paused halfway out of his seat at the sheer unexpectedness of this command. "I—yes, my lord." Somewhat awkwardly, but swamped with relief, the lieutenant extricated himself from the table and wasted no time in quitting the premises.

Vader ambled around the table. Every eye remained locked on the table surface, except for Kale who stared steadily at Vader, and so no one noticed the slight gesture the Dark Lord made with one hand, and no one noticed the conference room hatch whisper tightly shut.

"Gentlemen." Vader's voice was little more than a poisonous whisper. "I think no one would assert that this has been any less than an utter failure."

Dead silence was the answer. None of them was about to stick out a neck for Vader to wring.

"I also think I speak for the Emperor when I say," Vader continued softly, "that failure such as this is…intolerable." He was standing next to Kale now, and he stopped. The two men stared at each other for a long, epic moment.

Then the silence was shattered by the _snap-hiss_ and bloodied glow of a lightsaber.

* * *

The cape was heavy. Piett's footsteps as he came back to the conference corridor were even heavier. He wished miserably that he'd never left Axxila, never attended Academy, never—

The guards at the door were gone. Piett noticed it just before a scream torched through the air.

Shaking, but not daring to leave the hallway, he backed against the wall on the opposite end and closed his eyes, torn somewhere between horror and adrenaline.

Fate had smiled on him after all. Vader had spared his life.

* * *

The stars blurred into twisting streaks, like the durasteel bars of a protective cage through which no one could reach to catch them. After a few final exclamations even Threepio fell silent, while the three emotionally-exhausted humans sank wearily back into their seats. The air was oppressively empty of sound waves, but Padmé could not bring herself to speak. Neither could Luke; she could see his reflection in the viewport, filthy with soot from the power shaft, hunkered down in his oversized seat, motionless except for his hands which were fumbling with the pieces of the debris he'd dislodged. He hadn't even unbuckled the crash webbing.

Obi-Wan finally spun his seat around to face Luke after several minutes of contemplation. "You saved all of us, young Luke," he announced.

Padmé started, then turned with a warm (if rather wan) smile for her brave son. "Let me see what that was."

Luke handed her the pieces of the debris. "That's durasteel hull plating," she murmured in surprise. "How did you get it out?"

Luke shrugged. "I pulled really hard and then it broke apart. I hadda save Mommy from the bad man, so I just _hadda _do it somehow." He ventured a very tentative glance at Padmé.

Padmé gaped at him for a second and re-examined the pieces, thinking that perhaps the durasteel had been damaged before it became lodged in the vent. Nothing short of a laser blast could have done that, yet the pieces looked as though they had been cleanly torn apart like so much flimsi, without any blackening or warping to indicate an explosion of any kind.

Obi-Wan was smiling. "You drew on the Force, young Luke."

"But I'm not a Jedi," Luke said, still very quiet but blatantly confused.

"Not yet," Obi-Wan told them. "But you've taken your first step into a larger world."

He set a somewhat fatherly hand on the shoulder of a very somber-faced little boy for a moment. "You did well, Luke. Your uncle and aunt would be proud to know what a brave boy they raised." With another smile and a firm pat, he added, "I think that Threepio and I will go find something to eat and let you and your mother talk." Standing, he escorted Threepio away, closing the cockpit hatchway behind them.

Mother and son sat silently for a while before Luke finally repeated his earlier question. "Why were you so scared of the bad man?" he whispered. "Who is he?"

Padmé leaned forward, arms crossed on her knees. "His name is Darth Vader," she began slowly. "A long time ago, he was a Jedi just like your Daddy. He and your Daddy…were very close."

"Was he your friend?" Luke asked.

_That's one way of putting it_. "Yes," she said. "He was my very, very good friend. And he was a very good and brave man. But he was afraid of many things, and sometimes, Luke, fear can make us do terrible, terrible things."

Luke's eyes were wide as he nodded. "Like Aunt Beru said some people get so scared of Sand People that they kill them even when the Sand People don't do anything to them."

Padmé nodded. "Yes. At the same time that your Daddy flew away and got lost, Darth Vader became so afraid and angry that he couldn't trust any of his friends any more. So—so he—killed them. And when I came to him looking for your Daddy, he almost killed me too."

Luke's blue eyes were huge as lakes in his white face. "Did he kill Daddy too?" he whispered.

"No," Padmé whispered. "No, I don't believe he killed your Daddy. I believe that somewhere deep down Darth Vader still has good in him, and I believe that someday he can learn not to be afraid and stop hating, and I believe that someday we will be—" She paused, swallowed. "We will be the best of friends again," she whispered, and had to rub hastily at her eyes.

Luke was very silent, considering all this.

"I know it's very strange for you," Padmé continued. "And I'm sorry for upsetting you so much. But I haven't seen Darth Vader since—since the time he tried to kill me. And it hurts so much because I still love him very much—and I know that he's very unhappy—"

She bit down on her knuckles, screwed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry over Anakin again, and then felt a weight settling itself on her lap as small arms swung around her. She clutched him to her chest. "And I was so scared that he would find us and that he would hurt you," she whispered into his thick, dusty hair.

"But Obi-Wan rescued us," Luke pointed out optimistically. "An' someday when I get big an' I'm a Jedi we'll go find Darth Vader, and we'll give him a great big hug and maybe he'll stop bein' so scared of the dark."

She leaned back with a watery laugh and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "I think that sounds like a plan, little man."

Luke gave her a big wide grin, teeth standing out dazzling white compared to his black-smeared cheeks.

"We have to get you a bath, mister," she said ruefully. "I can't have you rubbing grime all over everything."

"Am I still gonna get—diss—dissa-planed?" Luke was suddenly looking terribly distressed.

Padmé considered. "I think all of that was enough discipline—this time," she added, a bit more sternly. "But now you know why I didn't want you to come with me to Fresia. Next time I tell you to do something, you'll listen, right?"

Luke nodded. "But—but you almost died this time," he pointed out fearfully. "Are you gonna do this again?"

"No," Padmé said with feeling. "No, I won't do anything like this again, or at least not for a very long time. Not until you're a big strong Jedi like your Daddy and can protect me no matter what."

"That won't be _too_ long," Luke said confidently. Padmé's lips twitched, but she agreed seriously and refrained from observing that this budding and fearsome warrior was currently snuggled in his mother's lap.

They sat in companionable silence for awhile, watching the panorama of hyperspace out the viewport, each thinking of the ones they wished could be with them. But Padmé's mind was full of peace for the first time in six years. It was as if facing Anakin again had made the pain more bearable. Or perhaps it was simply the solid, warm weight in her lap, the hope and promise of the child they had created. Quietly she caressed the mental image of her handsome husband as once he had been.

The peace was abruptly shattered by the buzz of the shipboard com. Luke started, his eyes shifting away from the viewport. Padmé's hand jerked forward quickly of its own accord to answer. "Yes?"

It was, of course, Obi-Wan. "You and Luke might want to come to the galley," he said tersely. "We have a stowaway."

Padmé felt her stomach turn at the word _stowaway_—half because of memory, and half because of fear. She stood hastily and pulled the cockpit blaster from its hidden slot beneath the main control panel, checking the charge. Luke watched with alarm until she held out her free hand. He seized it and followed her towards the galley.

When they came close, Padmé shifted Luke behind her just to be sure and hefted the blaster. Obi-Wan hadn't sounded too concerned, and she was sure the Jedi Master could handle any clone troopers or droids that might have stowed aboard their ship—but it was better to be safe. "Obi-Wan?" she called, edging up to the galley door.

Obi-Wan leaned into sight, his arms crossed with a surprising lack of distress. "I don't think the blaster will be necessary," he said, radiating amusement. Padmé hesitantly hooked the blaster to her belt and followed him into the galley, over to the pantry. Obi-Wan slowly unsealed the door…

Padmé shrieked in surprise at the sight of a small lizard peering out from between the boxes of Bantha Bites.

Luke squealed in delight. "I _toldja_ he liked me!" The little boy dashed forward and collected the lizard from the shelf. Sure enough, the stowaway was none other than the little creature Luke had released into the Tatooine wilderness just before they'd left the planet.

Obi-Wan wore a rueful smile. "Apparently our scaly friend is not so attached to the desert as I'd assumed," he mused.

Padmé sat down at the table, staring at Luke and the stowaway lizard. "Obi-Wan, what am I going to do with a lizard?" she sighed. "I don't even know what species the thing is!"

"I believe it's a common rock lizard," Obi-Wan said. "They'll eat just about anything; quite harmless little creatures, with a fairly short lifespan."

Padmé breathed a sigh of relief.

"But looking at that scale pattern," the Jedi continued thoughtfully, "it could also be a juvenile miniature krayt dragon."

Her stare switched to the Jedi in sheer horror. "A _what_?"

"A juvenile miniature krayt dragon," he repeated patiently. "Not nearly as impressive as an actual krayt dragon, of course, but a miniature dragon can reach…oh, I've seen them get up to about six feet long."

Padmé leaned faintly back into her seat. "Six feet long?"

"Of course, that's in the wild, with an abbreviated lifespan and limited nutrition," Obi-Wan continued. "I'm sure our friend here will easily surpass the average dimensions."

Plans for jettisoning the lizard out an airlock began evolving in Padmé's brain. The trick would be getting rid of it without upsetting Luke… "Really," she breathed.

"Absolutely," the Jedi continued cheerfully. "You'll have to have its teeth trimmed at that point. They usually develop impressive fangs, you know. Hopefully in the next system we can pick up some snakes for it."

Padmé paled even further. "Snakes?"

"Oh, yes. They prefer to eat live snakes. I think it would be best to let them loose on the ship and allow it to hunt. That would likely curb some of its considerable energy."

"I am _not_ letting a bag of snakes loose on my ship," Padmé hissed under her breath.

Luke came scampering up, clutching the lizard in both hands just like before.

"Mommy, can I keep him?" he chirped.

Padmé felt her stomach sink as Luke turned his hopeful gaze onto her.

"Pleeease?" he added.

Her mouth worked helplessly for several seconds before Obi-Wan took pity on her.

"It's a rock lizard," he whispered.

"But I thought you said…" Padmé trailed off as realization hit her, and finally leveled a most un-amused glare at the Jedi Master. "Very funny, Obi-Wan Kenobi," she growled. "_Very_ funny."

* * *


	23. Epilogue

A/N: …Zero. Well, everybody, this is the end! Can't believe I actually made it, but wonders never cease. :P Thank you very much to everyone who consistently reviewed this story; I appreciate you all more than I can say. You've been a huge encouragement to me as a writer. Thanks also to the rest of you readers. I won't tell you to de-lurk since I've been guilty of it myself, so just know that I'm glad you enjoyed the story and I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Final thanks go to my beta **Mathematica**, for not running away screaming when I plonked the last 60 pages of this story on her lap for final editing. Luvya, dear. :P

I know this is already a long note, but there's another you should read at the end of this post. Thanks again! I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)

* * *

_EPILOGUE_

* * *

L'Hanna stared into the tiny mirror panel on the opposite wall and marveled that she still looked the same as she had twenty-four hours ago. Her hair was still a businesslike brown, still brushing her shoulders neatly, and her face remained as commonplace as always. She did not look exotic or bold or dashing or devil-may-care, the way a guerrilla commando probably should.

She had noticed this before and had thought a shower and a change of clothes might make her feel more rebellious. But the clothes she had borrowed from one of Captain Antilles' lieutenants did nothing to make her look any less like a scared and very much out-of-her-league scientist. She might as well still be wearing her lab coat. In fact she wished she had it; wearing it, she might have felt insulated enough to venture out into the ship. As it was she felt like a pool of nitroglycerin, ready to fly spectacularly to pieces at the first disturbance. That was why she hadn't left the cabin since the lieutenant had brought her here.

_You've got to go out at some point_, she told herself sternly, staring at the sealed door from her ginger perch on the edge of the bunk. She had been practically bolted to it for several hours now. _It's no good hiding your head in the sand. You've got a new life now, like it or not. Sooner or later you'll have to start living it_.

She clenched the edge of the bunk. Of course she was going to go out, she told herself. Just not quite yet. _Wonder how long I can go without food if I drink water from the 'fresher_.

She never found out, because the door chimed and whirred open. Aresh was there. She stiffened. Now _he _looked like a Rebel. Orange jumpsuit, black combat boots, blaster strapped to his hip. Add a couple of inches and scars and pounds of muscle, a judicious splash of blood here and there, and he could pose for an Imperial propaganda poster. What the nine hells would her mother say if she knew the kind of company her daughter was keeping now?

It was probably a good thing her mother had died last year. She had no family left for the Empire to punish.

"We've dropped out of hyperspace to hold a holoconference with some of the Rebel cell leaders involved in this operation," Aresh said. "Captain Antilles has invited both of us to come. Let's hurry."

L'Hanna felt as though she was watching herself follow Aresh down the cramped corridors of the _Equality_. There were Rebels everywhere, hustling back and forth, too busy to pay the newcomers any mind. She wondered if there were many newcomers, but had no chance to ask before they were entering a conference room near the bridge of the corvette.

"Dr. Ve-Kiis," Captain Antilles greeted her. "I hope you're feeling rested."

She managed a very untruthful nod as she shook his hand.

"Dr. Devaal has been briefing us on your role concerning the Fresian operation," the captain continued, nodding at Aresh. "Allow me to extend thanks to you on behalf of all of us aboard the _Equality_—and, in fact, on behalf of the entire Alderaan resistance movement."

She looked about in surprise. So they were Alderaanian. She hadn't expected that.

"I'm sure this must be a difficult experience for you, Dr. Ve-Kiis, but I think I speak for all of us when I say we'll do our best to make you at home. In the meantime, I believe we have all the connections established for our conference, so if you'd please take a seat we can begin."

L'Hanna found a chair next to the captain and Aresh as the holoprojectors hummed to life. There were several people participating in the conference by holoprojector, none of whom she recognized.

"Raymus," said one of them warmly—a dark-skinned, distinguished-looking man. There were a great many respectful nods from the assembled officers.

"Viceroy," the captain responded. Then he nodded to the other projections. "Doctors, allow me to introduce Viceroy Bail Organa, General Jan Dodonna, and Lady Silya Shessaun, formerly Senator for Thesme. General, my lady, Viceroy, this is Dr. L'Hanna Ve-Kiis, and this is Dr. Aresh Devaal, lately of Incom Corporation Research and Development. They have been instrumental in securing the success of our Fresian operation."

"A success?" Silya Shessaun asked incredulously.

"Yes, my lady. The operation came off without a hitch, at least on the Fresian end." Antilles was positively glowing. "We have obtained all four of the prototype X-wings with relatively minor losses to my task force. Additionally we were able to copy nearly the entire Incom information database and wiped all of their files pertaining to the T-65 development process."

"My men will be happy to hear that," General Dodonna replied. "We suffered heavy losses in Kuat, including the _Mon Mallona _and the _Mon Kalanta_, but not without inflicting some impressive damage."

Everyone's ears were primed.

"Our best estimates indicate that we were able to destroy about two squadrons of TIEs, six uncompleted _Imperial-_class Star Destroyers, and"—Dodonna seemed to swell with grim pride—"the _Imperator_. Besides that, we've inflicted heavy damage on the shipyards there. I can assure you all that it will be months before the Empire can recover from the setback we've handed them."

Grins circled the room, and L'Hanna felt a little giddy herself. Only Bail Organa remained grim. "I commend all of you for the outstanding execution of this operation," he said gravely. "But we must not let our success today lull us into complacency tomorrow. We've surprised the Empire, but now they know that we're capable of hitting them where it hurts. They will not make it easy for us to do so again. We must be even more careful than before, and we must draw even closer together. Soon we hope to unite all of our various resistance groups into one cohesive organization, but that will not stop the danger from increasing."

"I concur," Shessaun said soberly. "In the meantime, I'll continue to pursue a production avenue now that we have the prototypes. I think that I've found a factory facility that will be willing to assist us."

"Excellent," Organa told her. "When Silya informs me that we have a facility safely arranged, I'll contact all of you for our next discussion. Congratulations, and may the Force be with you all."

The other holograms shimmered away and Antilles' officers began to flow out of the conference room, but the captain gestured to the two scientists to remain behind. They waited until the doors sealed.

"We can speak privately now, Viceroy," he said to Organa.

"Doctors," the Senator-Viceroy said. "We need to settle the question of where you go from here."

"From here?" L'Hanna repeated numbly.

Organa nodded. "You have been of great assistance to the Alderaan resistance organization, and both of you have sacrificed comfort, safety, and lucrative jobs to do so. If you so desire, we would of course be happy for you to continue as formal supporters of our cause. Your knowledge would be invaluable to us in processing the information we have obtained from Incom, and there will always be a need for trained engineers. However, if you do not wish to endanger yourselves any longer, I will personally oversee arrangements to settle both of you safely on Alderaan under new names."

"The Empire shot my nephew earlier this year—because he was Force-sensitive." Aresh paused a moment as the others blanched. Organa seemed to find the revelation even more disturbing than L'Hanna did. "I will serve the Rebel cause in whatever capacity I can."

Organa nodded, painfully somber. "We will be honored to have you among us, Dr Devaal. And what about you, Dr. Ve-Kiis?"

She stood mute for several long minutes. The prospect of a quiet, safe life was more than a little enticing, even if she'd never set foot on Alderaan in her life. But a part of her knew better.

"I'm sort of in it now," she said slowly. "I didn't know what I was getting into, and if I had I doubt I would ever have done it, and I still can't believe I'm even here…but there isn't any going back now, is there? Now that I know." She glanced at Aresh.

Bail regarded her solemnly. "In that case, Dr. Ve-Kiis, we will be proud to count you among our numbers, also." With a final nod to them all, his hologram vanished.

"Come on," Aresh said. He was looking at her quite proudly, as if she had done something exceptional. Which she hadn't, she groused to herself—unless it was exceptionally stupid. But what the hells else could an honest person do now, other than the exceptionally stupid thing she'd just done?

"Show me where the mess hall is," she ordered him irritably, preferring to think about anything but the death sentence she'd just volunteered herself for. Aresh raised his eyebrows and smirked ever so slightly.

"Certainly, Dr. Ve-Kiis."

* * *

As expected, the Emperor was most displeased with the news from Kuat and Fresia. It was perhaps as well that the _Exactor _was forced to stay in system and supervise as the Kuatis began cleaning up the mess and assessing the damages the Rebels had inflicted on the shipyards. Vader would not relish taking the brunt of his master's wrath on his own person.

After dispatching the entire command staff of the _Tyranny_—with the exception of Piett, whom the Dark Lord had transferred to the _Exactor_—and appointing properly terrified replacements under the leadership of the _Exactor_'s executive officer, Vader had ordered the Destroyer back to Fresia, there to properly assess damages, attempt to track down the Rebels, and inflict appropriate punishments on whatever Imperial personnel had survived the fiasco. In the meantime he concerned himself with examining the sole remaining clue the Rebel prisoners and Kenobi had left behind them.

The little yacht now reposing crookedly in Hangar Three of the _Exactor_ was an incredibly unremarkable piece of spacecraft. There were few items of interest aboard. The Rebel woman was shrewd; no holos were kept on the ship, no identification documents, indeed no files of any kind, for the computers had been completely wiped before the ship was taken. All that remained were food supplies in the galley, a few games, and a scant supply of clothing of a size to fit a petite human female 1.65 meters in height. There was nothing at all to indicate that a child had ever been here, except for a few pudgy fingerprints on the transparisteel of the viewport.

The analysts had been over the little craft with the finest combs imaginable, and had discerned painfully little about the woman who owned it. The ship's sterilization system was marvelously functional and had effectively suctioned up every last trace of genetic evidence into the shipboard trash incinerator. The child's fingerprints produced no match in the galactic databases. Furthermore, the escapees had somehow managed to hack into the _Tyranny_'s computer banks and had erased all images of themselves from the records. They had nothing to go on except for the height and weight indicated by the woman's wardrobe, a detention officer's claim that she'd had blue eyes, and Vader's own glimpse of her brown hair; regarding the Force-sensitive child, absolutely nothing.

Nothing the analysts found so much as hinted that Obi-Wan Kenobi had ever been aboard the ship. Nor could they trace the serial numbers to anything except the manufacturer, who had reported it stolen fifteen years ago. Undoubtedly the little craft had been sold and resold for cash a dozen times, perhaps even criss-crossing sides during the Clone Wars. There was no chance of tracking the owner.

It was a worthless, half-broken-down waste of valuable hangar space…yet Vader felt strangely attached to it. He found himself wandering its empty corridors and cabins at odd hours. Something oddly familiar but just beyond the limit of his mental grasp seemed to have left its mark here. Perhaps it was only that the sight of the woman, the sound of her scream, had evoked a memory of—her.

He told himself with a growl to forget the past; it had belonged to a dead man, to his dead wife, and their dead unborn child. It held no meaning for him. He was Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, heir to an Empire. He needed neither love nor companionship.

All the same, as he stood in the cramped cockpit of the small ship, he spread his own massive hand against the tiny prints that eager fingers had pressed there…and a little part of him wondered.

* * *

FINIS

* * *

A/N 2: I'm already getting questions about sequels, so I think I'll address that now. I would very much love to write a sequel to this story, or even two or three. The sad fact, however, is that writing this story took me nearly two years and an awful lot of hours. Looking at my long-term schedule for the next couple of years I may not have the time to write as much as I would like. There's also the fact that _The Father_, which I started in August of 2006, remains woefully incomplete, and I kinda feel I owe it to those readers to give that story my full attention until it's finished.

None of this is to say that I will never ever write a sequel for Rubies; as a matter of fact I've already begun mulling over possible plot lines and have rough ideas for three further stories, which would cover the entire AU through the end of ROTJ. But I'm just too busy during the semester to give my fics that much attention. I'm also nearly done with college, which means I'll be segueing into a great big unknown—so I can't make any promises. Once again, thank you all for reading!


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